The Wash

by Cary Christopher

  Her head swam and she slowly fell down onto the cement slab, catching herself with one arm while the other cradled the ball of feathers. The world stopped moving and she got her wits about her. Shaking off the mental cobwebs, she pulled her legs up under her and got back to her feet. She brushed off the dirt and bits of leaves from her pants and headed back inside the warmth of the house.

  ‘That’s a monster of a potpourri ball,’ she thought as wisps of her mother’s songs lingered on the edges of her mind. She thought she could even still taste a slight bit of apple on her tongue. Putting the ball on the counter top, she pulled a bottle of wine from the rack.

  “It’s just us tonight,” she said to the bottle as she popped it open and poured it into a decanter. Even across the kitchen, she could still faintly smell the feathery ball’s scent. She walked back, sat on a stool, and with her nose near the ball she breathed in again. A wave of new memories hit her like a film playing behind her eyes. She remembered sitting alone in her room as a teenager. The faces of her favorite bands staring back down at her as she wrote a letter to Steve telling him just how much she loved him. She could hear the sound of Journey playing on her portable stereo as she and Steve slept together for the first time. The room around her grew dark and now she was on a blanket under the stars not far from Steve’s truck. She could feel his hands caress her back and fumble with her bra strap. She could taste his breath, sweet with Southern Comfort and she could feel her own response to the excitement of the moment building between her legs.

  She opened her eyes and the kitchen swam in front of her. Her stomach buckled and she scrambled off the stool and fell to the floor. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes as her whole body spasmed, straightening out violently, hips thrust up into the air and back arched. The veins around her eyes stood out as a yell died silent on the tip of her tongue. Then just as quickly, the air rushed back into her lungs and she curled back up into a fetal position gasping for breath. Her eyes closed and a slow heat began building in her groin.

  “Poison,” she muttered, trying to pull herself up. “It’s poison.”

  She reached for the cordless phone on the counter. She needed to get to Steve. Another spasm hit her and forced her body into a ball. She cried out as it released her, tears streaming from her eyes as the world grew dark again.

  Behind her, through the glass sliding doors, a lone coyote watched Sara’s body go unconscious. Satisfied, it turned and trotted back toward the trees.

  IV

  “You’re so full of shit,” said J.B. He had just handed Wendell his first beer and was grabbing one for Steve. The bar wasn’t exactly bustling but there were about fifteen people there. Many were regulars from the dairy farm and feed store. Some faces were less familiar but they kept to themselves in the far corner of the bar.

  “No, he’s right,” said Steve. “Damnedest thing I’ve seen. It was a ball of spiders all crawling over each other.”

  He took the Bud Light from J.B. and took a long pull off it, “Besides, where do you get off telling Wendell he’s full of shit? You’re the one who had me believing that up to twenty years ago there were fur-bearing trout in the lakes around here.”

  J.B. smiled, “But there were. I saw them. My grandmother used to fry them up on special occasions and we’d dry the skins to make gloves for winter. Best tasting fish in the world. Tastes like browned butter even when it’s raw.”

  “Complete bullshit,” said Wendell spinning around on his stool to look around the room. “There ain’t no such thing as a fish with fur.”

  Robert walked up just in time to catch the last of the conversation. He looked at J.B., then at Wendell and reached in the cooler for two Coronas with a smirk on his face.

  “What?” asked J.B.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, let’s hear it. You’ve got something on the tip of your tongue.”

  Robert ignored him and walked the two Coronas over to one of the tables in the corner.

  “Who are those guys?” Wendell nodded his head toward the strangers.

  “Don’t really know,” replied J.B. “Just passing through I guess. Either of you seen Javier today?”

  Wendell scanned the room, “Actually, I thought he’d be here. He owes me money from that Arizona State game. If he pays up, I’ll buy us all a round.”

  “I don’t pay you enough to buy a round now?” asked Steve.

  Wendell shook his head no and took a pull from his beer.

  Steve turned to J.B., “Ungrateful bastard isn’t he?”

  The bartender just smiled in response. Jim’s was pretty loud, even for a Friday night. J.B. had plugged in his iPod and as it shuffled up The Psychedelic Furs’, their snarling guitars chugged underneath the conversations and smoke hanging in the air.

  “Seriously though, there was ball of spiders in your shop?” he asked.

  “No lie,” confirmed Steve. “There must have been a hundred of them all crawling over each other.”

  “You know anything about metaphysics?”

  Steve took a pull off his beer and looked from J.B. to Wendell, “What the fuck is metaphysics?”

  The younger man shrugged.

  “Metaphysics is a science,” J.B. began. “It’s the branch of science that studies things like time and space. Things we know exist but can’t really touch or hold onto. A major part of metaphysics is the study of how things relate to one another in the world.”

  Steve stared at him.

  “So let’s say you take a walk down the street,” J.B. continued. “What do you think your walk down the street has an effect on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Almost everything,” J.B. said. “For instance, you leave footprints, you squash insects,all kinds of things happen because of your walk. Say you step on an ant. That not only affects the ant but it also affects the other ants he interacts with. It’s all related.”

  Wendell chimed in, “So what’s this got to do with the spiders?”

  “Well, what if that ant took a walk? How would that affect you?”

  Steve drained his beer, “It’s not going to affect me one bit. It’s just an ant.”

  “Actually, it will affect you. It’s going to be very hard for you to notice, but the ants’ actions affect the things around him and those things affect you because…”

  “Everything is related,” finished Wendell.

  “Right,” said J.B.

  “So again, what’s this have to do with spiders?”

  J.B. reached under the bar and pulled out a small bowl. He set it in front of Steve and then put some water in the bowl.

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  Steve closed his eyes. J.B. took his finger, poked it in the middle of the bowl and pulled it out quickly.

  “Okay, open them.”

  Steve looked at the bowl, “So you did something to the water.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s sloshing around.”

  “Same with your spiders,” J.B. smirked.

  Wendell’s eyes lit up, “I get it.”

  “Explain it to me then,” said Steve.

  “Well fiddlebacks don’t swarm but we saw them swarming. There was nothing in the middle of them so it wasn’t that they had found some food or something. It was more like something caused them to go crazy. J.B.’s saying that the swarming was like the ripples in the water.”

  J.B. smiled, dumped the water down the sink and put the bowl back, “Right. That’s part of it, but the other part is that whatever caused them to act like that may be so tiny that their reaction is the biggest evidence of it. Most times, small actions create small reactions. So, your fiddleback swarm may be from something as small as a slight weather change. Or, it could be something big that is just now beginning to ripple the waters and the spiders were the first to feel it.”

  Steve looked up at J.B., “Why the fuck couldn’t you have just said that to begin with?”

  “I like watching people c
ome to it on their own,” he turned and headed down the bar to attend to two more regulars.

  Steve looked at Wendell.

  “How sad is it that the smartest guy I know works in a fucking bar in the middle of nowhere?”

  J.B. passed out a couple of drinks and headed back to Steve and Wendell when the door opened and in strolled Cindy Walker. She wore tight jeans, a low cut white cotton top and a denim jacket. Her hair hung in loose dark curls and her eyes quickly settled on Steve.

  “Shit,” said J.B. He looked down and began absently wiping down a perfectly clean glass.

  “You and Cindy having problems?” Wendell asked.

  “I’m not,” replied J.B. “but she probably is.”

  Cindy reached the bar and looked first at Wendell. She shook a cigarette out of the pack lying in front of him and then turned her attention to J.B.

  “Did I hear you say ‘she probably is’?” she asked. “What was that about?”

  “She is stealing my cigarettes,” Wendell said, deadpan as he unabashedly took in her figure.

  “Can I steal a light as well?” Cindy put a hand out and Wendell produced a lighter.

  “Let me guess,” Cindy started after lighting her smoke. “J.B.’s probably telling you all about how devastated I am.”

  “Actually, he didn’t say anything about you,” said Wendell.

  Cindy looked past him at Steve, “I don’t believe these two. You tell me the truth, Steve. Were they talking about me?”

  Steve tipped his beer up and drained it.

  “No. They weren’t actually. We were talking about spiders before you walked up.”

  Cindy looked at Wendell and tipped her head toward Steve, “See, I believe him.”

  “Why him?”

  “Because after so many years, I think Sara’s made an honest man out of him.”

  “Where is Sara tonight?” J.B. asked.

  “She’s home,” Steve turned on his stool so he was facing the group. He slid the bottle toward J.B. “I’ll take another one of those and a shot of tequila. You want one Wendell?”

  “Tequila shots?”

  “Spiders got me freaked out,” said Steve. “I don’t know why. They just do.”

  “Fine,” Wendell nodded to J.B. “I’ll join him.”

  “Cuervo or the good shit?” asked J.B. pulling two shot glasses up from under the bar.

  “Cuervo is fine,” said Steve. “I’m not looking for flavor. I’m looking to calm down.”

  Cindy leaned over the bar so she could see Steve.

  “A beautiful lady walks into a bar, engages all three of you in conversation and not one of you has manners enough to buy her a drink,” she said.

  “Get her one too,” said Steve, putting a twenty on the bar.

  “No,” replied J.B. “This one is on me.”

  He pushed Steve’s money back, pulled another glass out and poured Cindy a shot as well. Then he passed them out along with limes and salt and set another beer in front of Steve.

  “Death to all spiders,” Steve raised his glass.

  Everyone drank and Steve shuddered as he grabbed his beer to chase the shot.

  “What’s with the spiders?” Cindy asked.

  “Steve and I found a ball of fiddlebacks under one of the workbenches just before we closed up shop today.”

  “Fiddlebacks?”

  “Brown recluses,” J.B. threw out. “They’re poisonous little bastards.”

  “Yeah,” Wendell said. “They’ll rot the skin right off you if they bite.”

  Cindy repressed a shudder, “Did you kill them?”

  “Yeah,” said Wendell. “No one got bit but they were right where we were working.”

  Cindy turned her back to the bar and scanned the room. She recognized most of the couples and of course there were The Thompson boys holding down one end of the bar on their own. There was a wide gap between them and the next group of people. This was without a doubt because they bathed weekly at most.

  As usual the music was an eclectic mix of everything on J.B.’s iPod. That meant Bob Dylan gave way to Black Sabbath and AC/DC gave way to Johnny Cash or sometimes even Miles Davis. No one ever complained and part of the reason was that J.B. kept it low enough that even the heavy songs didn’t overpower the conversation. That was one thing Cindy really loved about Jim’s. The place seemed geared to be a meeting spot more than a drinking spot. She was just turning back to the bar when the front door opened and Javier Quintana stepped in. He wore black jeans, a tight black shirt and a black leather jacket. Surveying the room he nodded toward her and walked to where Wendell was sitting.

  “I have something for you, my friend,” he said reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a wad of twenty dollar bills and put them on the bar. Wendell picked them up, fanned them and stuffed them in the pocket of his work shirt. He tipped his beer toward Javier.

  “Thanks for that. Remember, you can doubt me all you want when it comes to the Cardinals, but never, ever doubt me when it comes to the Sun Devils. Since you paid so quickly, how about a consolation beer?”

  “Sounds fine to me. Modelo, J.B. No lime.”

  J.B. pulled a beer from the cooler, opened it and slid it toward Javier who was carefully looking around the room. Satisfied with what he saw, he turned back to see J.B. polishing the glass in silence again.

  “You’re a barrel of fun tonight. What happened to the gregarious half-breed I’m so fucking fond of?”

  “Why do you have to go there?” J.B. gave him a look that was part smile, part serious.

  “Don’t mind him,” Cindy interrupted. “He’s embarrassed because he broke up with me today over the phone instead of facing me. He thought I’d be so broken up that I’d stay home tonight.”

  Wendell did a double take, “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious. It was the usual bullshit. We’ve got nothing in common. I’m not looking for a long-term thing right now. Blah. Blah. Blah. I’ve heard it many, many times from a lot of different men and what it comes down to is he’s afraid of commitment.”

  J.B. stopped polishing the glass and looked over at her.

  “I’m not afraid of commitment. I just don’t want to commit to you. And it’s true. We don’t have anything in common.”

  “Whatever.” She reached over to Wendell’s pack and pulled another cigarette out. “Can I have another light?”

  “Just take the pack,” said Wendell. He pushed it over to her but she pushed it back.

  “I don’t need the pack. I just need a light. Besides, it’s more fun if I can steal them from you.”

  Steve leaned over the bar so he could see around Wendell.

  “You know,” he said to Cindy, “Don’t take this the wrong way but why didn’t you just call my wife and spend the evening talking shit about him instead of showing up here to bust his balls over it? It’s not like the guy can get away from you. He’s gotta work.”

  Cindy lit her cigarette, exhaled a plume of smoke above her head and then leaned back over to face Steve.

  “Well, your wife is taking the night off from you, and honestly, you’ve known me since I was in high school, Steve. Do you really think I’d let this jackass off easy?”

  Steve sat back, “Nah. I guess I don’t.”

  “Look, this town is too damn small to hide and feel sorry for myself so what’s the use? Besides, he’ll be asking me back out within a week even though we have ‘nothing in common’.”

  J.B. looked up, “That’s not going to happen.”

  Cindy took a drag off the cigarette.

  “Whatever,” she exhaled.

  “You know,” said Wendell as he put a hand on Cindy’s hip. “Could be you just haven’t met the right guy yet.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m guessing you’re not him,” She pushed his hand away, spawning a chorus of groans and a slap on the back for Wendell.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he asked.

  “You’re too young and you d
on’t think about anything but snowboarding and drinking. You’d have no time for me unless you wanted sex.”

  Steve tipped his beer toward Wendell, “The girl has a point.”

  “Can a girl with a point get a beer?”

  J.B. slid her a Miller Lite and waved off her attempt to pay for it as Robert joined them.

  “Hey man,” said Javier.

  He threw a hand out and pulled Robert in for a hug.

  “Did you hear? Bright eyes over here broke up with Cindy today.”

  “He told me all about it before we opened.”

  “Couldn’t wait to spread the good news, huh?” Cindy said. She picked up her beer and walked off toward two couples she recognized.

  “Well that was awkward,” Steve said. “How about another roundd of shots?”

  He motioned to J.B., “One for you too since you’re celebrating your freedom.”

  “I’ll definitely take you up on that,” J.B. began pouring the shots as Steve leaned over toward Javier and pointed.

  “Do you know that red-haired guy over there?” Steve pointed to a booth along the wall.

  “Yeah.”

  “He came by the shop earlier this week. Said his name was Jason Reller and he was a business acquaintance of yours. I don’t mean to offend you if he’s your friend but that guy is a little strange.”