Someone To Crawl Back To

by Phillip Gardner

  A thin, white-haired guy in a Dixie Cup jacket with three empty glasses on his machine turned to order another drink, but nobody saw him. The old guy wore a neat, thin white beard, and his eyes were so pale and blue that he looked a little spooky. He tore the plastic from a cigar, glanced over at me, and counted the few bills next to his hand. I strolled over to the doorway near the dancing, where I could watch the women and wait on the old man. I was already nearly done with the beer.

  The dancer had short, shiny black hair and the thin body of a little girl. There was something about her eyes when she smiled. She had the littlest titties I'd ever seen on a dancer, but her eyes were really pretty, so pretty that I watched her face more than her tits. There were four tables off the side of the stage with young guys, maybe in their twenties. One of them, I figured out soon enough, was about to get married. Most of the other tables had a guy solo. The young ones were whooping it up, and after the first song they stood in line to toss money on the dance floor.

  While I was watching the party, the old guy at the machine had ordered another drink and was almost done with it when I looked back at him. A young bouncer-looking guy with short Brillo hair and a woman with lacquered skin sat at the bar. They both had real dark tans, but they didn't look too happy. You could see in their shrink-wrapped faces and in the way they sat—together but not together—that they'd been fighting. He stared straight ahead, rubbing his forearm like he'd been bit, and she tilted her head away from him and blew her cigarette smoke like it was made of cuss words.

  The girl danced two more songs, and half-way through the second one she flipped off the G-string. I saw her little naked behind. She danced up a step or two toward the party of young smiley men. Three of the young guys snared the one who was to be married and dragged him to the stage. They were all laughing, and the groom looked back at the others who were clapping and laughing at the tables and didn't put up much of a struggle. When he got to the stage, the others pressed his shoulders and he went down on his knees.

  “Get used to it,” one of them shouted, laughing.

  The girl danced in slowly toward him. I could see all of the guys' smiling faces. Then, when she was a step away, she turned her back to them, facing me. The way she had shaved, she really did look like a little girl. I saw her face again. She was just a child. She leaned forward with her hands on her knees, took a step back, and wiggled her ass when his mouth touched. I couldn't watch.

  The blackjack machine the old man had held was empty. I laid my cigarettes on it to hold my place and went to the bar for a beer. The tanned muscle-guy stood up from his stool as I walked over, and just as he turned away from her, the woman spoke in his direction.

  “You better save me some,” she said. The man didn't pay her any mind as he headed for the door.

  I guess because I don't tip the bartender, he stands off pretending I wasn't there. The music stops again, and the woman taps her glass on the bar. She orders gold tequila, two lemons. When it comes, she takes out her green gum, positions it on the corner of her napkin beside her drink. She looks down at the tequila in a way I recognize, and I think—as I watch her think—that she's gonna take a breath, run her fingers through her hair and throw back the shot. But she doesn't. The hair is the color of butter mixed in molasses, starched back like she’s spent her life in a wind tunnel that has rounded our her cheeks, sloped her throat like a lizard’s. She’s a coke whore. She studies the tequila, then takes it down in four visits while I wait for my beer.

  I feed in five bucks. I draw trash. I think about it, which is always my downfall, and figure I’ll be lucky if I break even. Which I don’t. I look down and see that my beer is gone, downed in one swallow when I didn’t even know it, which doesn’t seem right. So I’m thinking I’ll get another beer and play a two-dollar hand, take if from there, for whatever it’s worth. Then I look at my watch and think of Gale. I feed in the last five bucks, win seven-fifty on the five, lose it all in the next two hands.

  The twenty is right where I left it, under the floor mat of Wallace’s truck. My cigarettes and beer mug are on the machine to hold my place, but I trot back toward the entrance anyway on account of the bartender, who would like to piss in the pack, I think.

  Out on the interstate, horns blow. When I look, I see the damnedest thing: This huge, skinny dog, a greyhound, I’d bet, is walking across the interstate. He never breaks stride. I’m thinking it’s a miracle if he don’t get splattered. But he doesn’t. I just stand there, not believing what I’m seeing.

  When the dog disappears, I look up at the night sky. You can tell that it’s cold up there, on account of how bright the stars are. Then I think about seeing those same stars from somewhere in Florida, with Gale lying beside me, you know, seeing those stars reflecting in her eyes, and that feeling I had driving runs through me again.

  The leather-skin couple are huddled in serious conversation when I come back in. And if the bartender ever knew I’d left, he doesn’t let on. My cigarettes are right where I put them. I break the twenty for a beer. One of the fives I get back in change is brand new, and the machine takes it in like liquid.

  God looks down on us.

  I play Pot-A-Gold for the five bucks, and what I draw is a royal flush, and what it pays if $125. My heart does flips and spirals. Cash in, I think. I look at my watch. I can cash in, buy a six-pack to go, drive the speed limit, and be back to meet Gale at the highway with time to spare. Time to just pull over, have a beer and wait for her.

  Or I can play high/low to double. I decide I’ll cash in. Then I remember that I’m still holding two fives. I can have a drink and think about what to do. I backpedal toward the bar, watching the machine, not that there’s anybody who’s gonna steal my hand. I’m afraid there might be a power failure, you know, some act of God, and so I back toward the bar.

  “Hey, hotshot, buy your friend a drink” It’s the woman. The man has left again.

  I look at the bartender, then back at the machine. “Can't do it,” I say to the machine. “I'm on my way to Florida.”

  She sort of chokes, laughing and drawing at once on her cigarette.

  “W-e-l-l,” she hacks, “they won’t stop you at the state line, keep you from crossing for buying me a drink, now will they? I could do you some good in Florida.”

  I look over at her, and she's smiling.

  “I got connections you wouldn't believe in Florida. I'm from Miami. Him and me,” she motions toward the door, “we've been vacationing, to New York to do some business. But my connections are all over Florida. That's where I'm headed, too.”

  “I'll have bourbon,” I said.

  “And I'll have another—on him,” she said, pulling hard on her cigarette, sizing me up. I slid the other two fives toward the bartender. If I cashed out I wouldn't miss the ten. She was just holding the tequila, studying it, when my drink finally comes.

  Facing me when I sat down, the words “Royal Flush $125” were lit up still. I rotated the drink slowly, icing it good, waiting for some sign. When none came, I lifted the glass. The bourbon was warm and cool at once. Well, I thought, am I high or am I low or am I a cash-out nothing. I heard the words go through my head in a sort of sing-song way, and I smiled at the sound, which made me think of Gale. “Am I high? Or am I low?” I sang. “Or am I a cash-out noth-ing?” I'm high, I thought, and with a slow graceful arc my finger pressed the High button.

  And I was a winner. “Yes!” I yelled, turning and smiling at the bartender, who paid me no mind, and then at the couple, who smiled at me, and then at each other, then spoke to each other—then looked back at me.

  When I tried to hand the pay-out slip to the bartender, he said I'd have to cash out with the manager, then turned his back. I walked around the end of the bar, where the Florida couple was huddled again, back through the wide door where the stage was. Three of the dancers were sitting at the young guys' tables. Their friend who was about to get married sat apart from the others, as if the party had tilted away fro
m him, passed out with his mouth half open, wearing only his boxer shorts, looking like a broken piece of furniture. At the very back of the room in a corner, behind a fake tree, I saw the lighted outline of a door with an office sign. The bourbon and the excitement of winning made me a little wobbly, and I missed the door handle first try.

  Before I could give it another shot, the manager, a rutty-faced guy with jet-black dyed hair and wearing an over-starched white shirt, pushed open the door. The little girl dancer sat across from him in a housecoat, staring at the floor. He took the cash-out slip from me, looked at the amount, then handed it back to me with a pen to sign. She didn't look up. She was in the principal's office, you could just tell. The man opened the desk drawer with a key, counted out five fifties, and handed them back over his shoulder for me to take, looking at her the whole time, waiting for what she didn't want to say, it seemed to me. She looked up with sad, puppy-like eyes.

  I folded the money and started out. Gale would be waiting when I got there. I'd get us a six-pack to ride on.

  The Florida woman's head rested on the bar. Her eyes were closed. The burly guy signaled to me.

  “Hey, gimme a hand, will ya, pal? Help me get her to the car.”

  I looked over at the bartender, who was reading a newspaper at the other end of the bar.

  “Come on, pal. Just lift that side so she can walk. You never even seen a mean bitch till you seen this one ruin her new shoes.” He was holding up one side of her. I took the other arm, and we lifted her. Her head lopped to the side as the three of us wobbled toward the door. Outside, she stepped softly off the curb. Hauling her took more effort than I'd expected. The work made my blood pump, made me a little weak-kneed from the liquor.

  “Let's give her a breath of air,” the man said. I looked up at the night and thought about the time.

  “Look, I got to go, I got to be somewhere.”

  “Where're you parked?” he said.

  “Round there.” I motioned with my head.

  “Good, me too,” he said, hefting her up.

  We made it around the dark corner and were near the back of the lot. A cold breeze stirred.

  “Heavy bitch, ain't she? That one yours?” he said, nodding toward Wallace's truck.

  “Yeah.”

  I felt her weight lift from my shoulder. I glanced over at her. She was staring wide and shiny-eyed at the man. Like an animal. Then I looked over at him. She pulled away from me.

  “Well??” She was looking at him. “Well, what you waiting for, Brint? Do it, Brint, do it, do it you fuck!”

  I don’t remember feeling anything.

  Then I was flying through black space so high and cold I couldn't stop shivering. A blowtorch roar filled my ears. There were dim lights far away and then bright flashes, like matches struck on my eyeballs.

  Everything was dark. The blowtorch faded into the low rumble I knew was the sound of Wallace's truck. I was in and out.

  Thick, vise-grip hands took hold of my ankle and one wrist, and I was dragged like a bag of fertilizer, sideways down the ribbed bed of the truck. My right ear folded back against my head, and with the thumping something warm ran from my nose or mouth, down under my folded-back ear.

  The knuckles on my free hand raked chunks of gravel.

  Blood flooded inside my head; I was suspended in air, weightless. Then falling. After I hit, I tumbled and flipped until I thought I'd never stop. The cold ground around me trembled.

  Stinking, wet breath washed over the side of my face. The weight of the hot, sour air hurt my cheek and swollen-shut eye. Against the moonlight, I made out the thin snout of a black hound.

  Way off somewhere, babies were crying.

  Directly overhead, all was bright blue.

  Out at the horizon, as far out as you could see, just above the water, the sky was deep red with streaks of thin clouds. Night was shaping up. Sandwiched between the coming night and the ending day, where the rotting dock curled down into the water, the sky was purple. Me and Wallace sat in the heavy shade, on what was left of the porch outside the shack, looking out on the Indian River. We sat in old pine rockers, drinking red wine from big, fancy silver cups, like from the time of the knights.

  Wallace made Florida seem as close to paradise as I was likely to get. “Human flesh is tougher than lettuce leaves, tomato skins and grapefruit rind,” he said, stroking the throat of a young black Labrador that kneeled beside his chair. The dog raised her muzzle, closed her eyes at his touch. Its whelp mate, resting beside me, suddenly raised his head, wide-eyed, ears high, alert.

  “Watch them dogs,” Wallace said. He took his hand from the female, and she raised her head like she’d received a message, heard some call. The wind picked up, gently blowing back their black manes, bringing in the smell of the river. The dogs sat stiff as tight muscle, looking out at the horizon like lion statues. For a time Wallace just looked out at the sun, which now was maybe two inches off the water. Way back, the sky was really red, above the broken dock a deeper purple. I watched the dogs, waiting.

  Then, at the same instant, the two Labs sprang to their feet and pressed their faces into the wind, out toward the water. “Keep your eye on them dogs,” Wallace whispered. I looked from the Labs out to the river. The shadows from the saw grass were long now and covered most of the yard between the porch and the dock. The wind was cool when it came from the land side, warm off the water. In a minute the two dogs began pacing around my chair in widening circles, like planets turned loose from the sun, gliding finally from one end of the porch to the other. It was clear something had them shook up.

  Off to the left, seven bums were sitting in a line behind the tall grass at the river, watching the sun enter the water. In a minute, two more bums appeared from behind a shed and crossed the yard, leaving long shadows as they headed for the water line. They didn’t speak.

  “Are you ready, Chapel? Are you ready, son?” The two darted from side to side, ears up, their noses jutting into the cool breeze, suddenly sitting, then up again pacing, making little begging sounds. They coiled a path around us like water around stones. You’d have thought they were trapped on an island surrounded by rising tides. The female stopped beside me, intense and anxious. Her eyes—thick with water and red with reflection from the sinking sun—had fixed on something out there, maybe something in the sunlight, something I couldn’t see.

  “Hold on, Chapel,” Wallace said softly. “It won’t be long now.” He nodded toward the water. The narrow shore was lined with drunks and bums, evenly spaced, sitting a few feet apart, Indian-style, each one facing out, alone. Three more were crossing the yard from the right, more in darkness than in light, and I saw the heads of two more bums rising from behind the sluice farther back. My hands and feet were cold, and I felt for my cup. You could see only the outline of the bums against the water and the red sky. I took a long drink from the silver wine cup, but when I set it down it somehow looked full again.

  The two Labs lit off the porch as if they’d been fired from a slingshot, front legs extended half-again the length of their body, landing softly, then pulling so hard on the sandy gravel that their front paws folded into their hind parts, which dug in, sending them into the air again.

  The narrow wooden dock dipped and curved from weather and rot, but the dogs make a straight black line down it, clearing the last plank, leaping toward the sun as if it were a flaming hoop. The female landed first, disappearing into the black water. I rose up from my seat, a little lightheaded.

  Suddenly, the first young Lab erupted from the river, rising maybe five feet from the water like a movie scene run backward, folding, hanging frozen for a moment, then falling with a splash.

  When I looked again for the female, I saw the porpoise for the first time, saw it’s snout lift the female under her front legs, send her up into the cool night, while the male swam toward it, eager to fly again.

  I looked over at Wallace for some explanation. In the dim purple light, he looked like a very old
man, the lines in his face deep and wide, his eyes fixed and sad. He didn’t speak or move. And now the fading bums and drunks seemed to come from all directions and disappear into the shadows of the tall grass, an endless stream of them. In a few minutes it would be too dark to see the dogs playing, but I was sure somehow they would go on, flying up high, coming down like black question marks.

  “This is the life, ain’t it, Wallace?” I said. I couldn’t see him in the darkness. In a moment the night would be done. The first stars appeared way up in the purple black sky.

  “This is it, ain’t it, Wallace? This is it.”

  You Can’t Tell Me You Love Me Enough

  Coach and BB

  What I do,” said Coach lifting his beer, “is I aim for the center hole in the bottom of the urinal. As long as I’m on target, I’m okay.” The Happy Hour men at The Paradise Lounge were discussing their personal, individual sobriety tests, how they determined if they were too drunk to drive home.

  “Sometimes his aim ain’t so good,” said Coach’s wife, BB, who was the new bartender. “Like most men, when he misses, he misses low,” she said.

  The other men at the bar laughed. One of the regulars, Pete, ordered a Royal Flush split three ways. BB poured the two liquors and juice into a chrome shaker, lined up three glasses, tilted the shaker over the glasses and waved it like a wand, pouring equal portions. She set a glass before Pete and Coach and held the third one up for a toast.

  “Here’s to love and crash landings—and to guys who can find the mark.” Again the men laughed. In the year since she’d begun bartending, business had more than doubled.