by Tim Sandlin
As we walked out the door, I heard Thamu Kamala say, “Jesus, that guy’s got the astral aura of a goat.”
• • •
All the way across town Ann worried that I didn’t like Mexican food and was just being polite to humor her.
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
“You always sacrifice what you want in order not to hurt my feelings. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather try the Grinning Greek downtown? I don’t mind. I like them both.”
“I have never sacrificed anything not to hurt feelings, and how do you know you like them both if you haven’t eaten in either one, and it’s my birthday. If I didn’t like Mexican food, believe me, I’d say so.”
Ann twisted a button on her peasant blouse. “I wish I could be sure.”
“Be sure. I’m exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do with exactly who I want to do it with.”
Ann sighed and reached under the gearshift to put her hand on my upper leg. “You’re sweet, Loren. You treat me so good.”
I wasn’t aware of that. We passed a billboard that showed a seductive woman lying on a black satin sheet, wishing someone would ply her with Cutty Sark. I fantasized what it would be like to ply the woman. It made a nice fantasy that I revised several times in the next few miles.
“Do you think Buggie will be all right with Joyce?” Ann asked.
From the Interstate, Los Gatos looked like a big, stuccoed armory under attack by a twenty-foot neon tower. As we swung into the parking lot, “The Lonely Bull” by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass blared from speakers mounted on top of the building. I circled the lot twice, passing empty spaces in hopes of getting closer, then when I gave up and returned, the spaces were taken. We ended up parking a quarter mile from the restaurant. Before I killed the engine, Ann jumped from the car, ran around, and when I stepped out, she grabbed and kissed me.
“This is going to be far-out,” she said.
“I never heard you use that term before.”
“Far-out’s what the Maharaj Ji used to say about Mexican food.”
• • •
I held Ann’s hand as we threaded through a cluster of concerned-looking people bunched up in front of the shiny blond hostess. “We’d like a table near the orchestra.”
The hostess had the cheekbones of a Comanche warrior. “What orchestra? Name.”
“I heard you have a band.”
“We have a band. No orchestra. Name.”
“Loren.”
She glanced behind me at Ann. “Two?”
I nodded. The hostess wrote Loren and (2) at the bottom of a long line of names. “It’ll be an hour. You can wait in the bar.”
“Where’s that?”
The blond woman stood up and kept going, up and up, way over my head, I couldn’t believe it. She was the tallest blond woman I’ve ever seen. “Through that curtain.” She pointed. If I owned a restaurant, I’d put a hostess out front who smiled now and then, but I hate to judge personalities.
Rooster piñatas and bunches of dried peppers hung from the bar’s ceiling. Much of the wall behind our table was covered by a weaving of the sunrise over an extinct volcano with a little mud hut and a profiled donkey standing at the base. All the colors used in the weaving were shades found naturally in the desert.
Ann couldn’t let herself relax. “Did you see a phone? I forgot to tell Joyce Buggie likes a glass of kefir at bedtime.”
“I told her he’d drink apple juice.”
“Loren, that’s all wrong. He drinks apple juice in the afternoon and kefir at night. Now I have to call her.”
I knew better than to disagree. “I saw a phone in the waiting room.” Ann left, searching for a dime and a telephone.
The customers all looked either drunk or bored—which I guess is what you get when you sit in a bar for an hour, hoping a table will open up. My entire adult life has been dedicated to the policy that it’s better to be drunk than bored, so I waved the cocktail waitress over and ordered a pitcher of margaritas. The waitress was cute, in a young and restless sort of way, but I wouldn’t say she had any characteristics of Spanish blood. She looked more Colorado Presbyterian sorority sister, the sort of woman who drove a Mustang 2+2, permed her hair, and thought sex was a sin but committed it anyway.
The bartender now, he was authentic—swarthy, dark mustache and sideburns, purple ruffled shirt, sneer. Sex wasn’t sinful to the bartender.
Ann arrived moments behind the Presbyterian waitress with our pitcher. “Joyce says Buggie’s okay. He’s helping Thamu Kamala put a puzzle together.” Ann sat and poured herself a drink. “You don’t think Joyce would lie, do you?”
I used the cocktail napkin to wipe salt off my glass rim. “Why would she lie?”
“I don’t know, but she sounded odd. She said Buggie didn’t want to talk to me.”
“He can barely talk.”
“She said he was having too much fun throwing puzzle pieces.” Ann sipped and made a face. “What is this?”
“Margarita, it’s good.”
She sipped once more. “Is it tequila? I don’t think I like tequila.”
For someone drinking something she didn’t like, Ann sure polished off that pitcher in record time. Whenever I drink or smoke pot or have sex or anything relaxing, I like to think about something other than what I’m doing. Who wants to think, I will now chug this tequila before chugging tequila? It takes away the spontaneity. I’d rather dream about fishing or dead writers or what deeds of valor I would perform if a small plane crashed through the ceiling and cut the bartender in half. But when Ann drank, which didn’t happen often, she forced as much alcohol as possible into her body in as short a time as possible. The only way I could keep up was to concentrate on not daydreaming and pay attention to the rise and fall of margarita in the glass. Every few minutes the shiny blond woman came through the curtain and everyone perked up until she called the name. On the average, though, more waiting people came in the bar than called people went out. Two costumed Mexicans carrying an accordion and a guitar pushed through the crowd, singing, “Girl from Ipanema.”
Ann was shocked. “That’s the band?”
I was mystified. “Isn’t Ipanema in France?”
“California.”
“Are you sure?”
Ann nodded. “Suburb of West Covina. One of my sisters lives there.”
“I didn’t know West Covina had suburbs.”
Ann laughed, not her normal laugh, this laugh was definitely tequila-inspired. “That makes my sister the girl from Ipanema.”
One glass into the second pitcher and Ann started to talk. Her diction came out fine, no slurs, no stutters to speak of. I only knew she was drunk because her eyes glassed over and she talked more than usual about things she didn’t normally talk about.
“My dad would really hate you,” she said. “If the two of you ever met, I think he would shoot you with his pistol.” Every father of every girl I so much as took on a Coke date has hated me.
Ann tossed down half a glass of margarita. “Whoa,” she said, “that really slakes the thirst.”
“Slakes?”
“He would shoot you because you smoke drugs and wash dishes instead of working. But mostly he would shoot you because you have a penis.” At the word penis, Ann had a giggle fit. She scrunched down and checked out the neighboring tables to see if any eavesdroppers showed offense.
“Does your father hate everyone with a penis?”
“Only the ones who know me.” She stared into her glass a moment. “Or maybe he hates me because I don’t have one.” As Ann’s mind temporarily dropped into a remembrance trance, I took the opportunity to catch up on my drink and look at the cocktail waitress again. She wore a short skirt and bloodred hose. Her posture seemed contrived to accentuate the bust area.
I wondered
what my mom would think of me if I weren’t related to her and Kathy brought me home. She’d probably give me instant iced tea and Wheat Thins and ask me what my parents did for a living. She’d talk about her younger years, then, as I stood up to leave, she’d smile and say, “Hurry back.” Afterwards Mom would scream at Kathy and take away her phone privileges until she promised never to see me again.
Ann came back with a jolt. “Dad mails out a family newsletter every Christmas. It’s mimeographed with a list of where all us kids are and what we’re doing, who we’ve married, how many children, that kind of thing, but after my sister told him about Freedom, he stopped sending me the letter. Isn’t that sad?”
I hadn’t followed the sequence properly. “What’s Freedom?”
“A hippie I cohabited with. He made turquoise jewelry and sold barbiturates.”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Did I ever tell you I used to take barbiturates sometimes.” Ann giggled again. “I may not act it now, but I was one wild little teenybopper.”
I tried to picture Ann as wild or a teenybopper, but neither concept would flesh out. To me, she had always been a young mother who had to be drunk to say penis.
“I didn’t shave my legs or pits for four years,” she said, as if to prove her decadent youth.
“Neither did I.” The giant hostess pushed through the curtain and called a name. The people sitting at the next table stood and followed her away.
“Didn’t those people come in after us?” I asked.
“When Daddy found out about Buggie, he took my name completely out of the newsletter. Someone reading it now wouldn’t even know I exist.”
“I could have sworn those people came in after we did. I think the frigid beanpole skipped us.”
“When your own dad denies your existence, it’s hard to believe in it yourself,” Ann said. She looked ready to cry. I’d never seen Ann’s entire alcohol progression, so I didn’t know what to expect. Most women slide smoothly from happy to thoughtful to sad to playful to sexy, but every now and then I’d met one who went happy-thoughtful-sad-hysterical-angry-unconscious. That’s the type you don’t want to take into a fancy restaurant.
“Loren.” The blond tower clamped a hand onto my shoulder. “I called your party three times. Once more and I give away the table.”
“I’m sorry, we were talking and didn’t hear. Ann, you take the glasses, I’ll carry the pitcher.” I never seem to go anywhere without apologizing to somebody about something.
The hostess led us through two or three dining rooms, past the roving Mexican duet who still played “Girl from Ipanema,” to a small, round table under a gory bullfighting painting.
“Here,” she said. “The special is chicken tacos. Your waitress’s name is Toni.”
“Miss,” I asked politely, “I don’t mean to pry, but do you have a personal problem that is affecting your attitude toward me?”
That was a mistake. Her lower lip trembled, then her forehead wrinkled. The lake-blue eyes filled with tears and, as the hostess folded into the chair she had intended for me, she broke into mournful sobs.
Ann said, “Now look what you’ve done.”
The hostess lay her head on the table and wept—loudly. I never know how to act around crying strangers. Everywhere I turned diners stared accusingly back at me. A few even muttered ugly comments. The only comment loud enough to understand came from a cowboy two tables down. “Hostessing is tough enough without assholes giving her a bunch of shit.” He wore a fringe jacket and a gray felt hat, obviously a man who ate meat three times a day and thought anyone who doesn’t chew is a sissy.
“Hey, I didn’t give her shit. I asked if she had a personal problem.”
The cowboy pushed back his chair and stood. “That’s not giving her shit?”
“Nothing like the shit you’re giving me.”
“I’ll show you shit.” He stepped around the table toward me. The whole dining room drew in its breath, poised on the edge of a disgusting scene, and, from the sound of the general buzz, public opinion ran with the cowboy.
As usual in these situations, I was saved by the intervention of a woman. The hostess stepped between me and the cowboy, leaving me with a view of the bra line on her back. She sniffed a couple of times. “It’s okay. It’s not his fault. I shouldn’t have come to work tonight.” Her back quivered a second. “I just thought work might be good for me. I thought I could make it through the shift, but I was wrong. I shouldn’t have tried.”
The cowboy was out of sight in front of the hostess, but from the expression on Ann’s face, I gathered he wasn’t going to stomp me after all. That was nice. Getting stomped would have messed up my birthday.
While Ann and the hostess hem-hawed around, apologizing to each other, I poured myself a margarita and considered the implications. Two of my primary goals are to complete life without hurting anyone or pissing anyone off, yet I seem doomed to fail at every turn. In fact, I hurt more often than I help. How do people manage inoffensiveness? Do people manage it or are my goals automatic failures?
“That sobered me up,” Ann said. “Let’s order another pitcher.”
• • •
We finished the second pitcher before the waitress took our orders, so I don’t recall what I ate. Ann had the chicken tacos and I think I ordered something green and stuffed. Like magic, more margaritas appeared in front of my plate. The way this kind of restaurant works is they make you wait for a table so long that by the time the food arrives, you’re too drunk to know if it’s any good. The rest of my birthday evening was like trying to watch two television shows on one television. Awareness came in, went out, came in again, but the plot kept moving right along whether I was there or not.
I did come around for some important information. From the blur, Ann’s voice said, “I’ve been offered the assistant directorship of a community day-care center, a hundred and twenty kids, eleven teachers, fenced-in play area, a cook who fixes lunch and snack, then cleans up the mess. What do you think?”
“I thought you loved your own kids?”
Ann nodded. “I do, but Thamu Kamala leaves for kindergarten in three weeks, and the Wilderness Society is transferring Jesse’s dad to San Francisco, something to do with whales. The other kids could probably come with me.”
I dropped my fork. I don’t know whether someone picked it up or gave me a new one, or maybe I picked it up myself, although I doubt that. All I know is my hand soon held a fork that looked and felt similar to the one I dropped.
At some point, the cowboy stood over me, breathing like a tired bear. His hands were clenched, so I didn’t look any higher. I concentrated on my refried beans, pretending they so engrossed me that I couldn’t notice anything else. He didn’t say anything that I remember. Later, I raised my head and he was gone.
Ann was still talking, but I’m not sure if I missed a little or a lot. “I’m tired of doing all the work myself, and it would be nice to be around other women. At the big center I’ll earn vacations so we can travel and go camping. I really miss camping. I haven’t been once since Buggie was born.”
“I didn’t know you liked outdoors.” Every time I felt certain about Ann’s values and opinions, she’d say something new and I’d have to start all over.
“Besides,” Ann said, “with the kids gone you could move into my apartment. Or we could rent a house together. Wouldn’t that be neat?”
“You mean live together full time? Leave my place? All my books are there.”
I have a feeling this conversation lasted clear through whatever we ate, but my brain switched to another channel and didn’t come back until I found myself pressed against Ann as she leaned back on the car hood.
I heard myself saying, “Let’s go to my apartment and make love.”
Ann glowed. “Loren, I’m so happy. We’re going to have the most wonderfu
l life together, you wait and see. All my dreams are coming true.”
“Or would you rather do it on the car?”
She kissed me a long time. Finally Ann pulled back and looked full into my face. “Don’t you love being happy? I never thought it could be so much fun.”
The drive home has left my memory banks, thank God. The next awareness wave caught us in bed in my apartment. I wanted to slow down so I could enjoy the prospect of sex without a child between us, but Ann was in too big a hurry to enjoy prospects. She never was big on foreplay. I think Ann got most of her foreplay in her imagination during the daytime, so when our bodies came together, she didn’t have to waste any time.
I lay there wishing I wasn’t so drunk and likely to switch channels in the middle of something nice. This was my chance to writhe around, make all the noise I wanted, and actually think of myself during sex for a change. But somehow I didn’t feel like you’re supposed to feel when you make love on your birthday. I felt like I was listening to the sound track of a dirty movie.
My mood must have rubbed off on Ann because after a while she lay still with her face in my shoulder hollow.
I said, “I love you,” to see how it sounded, but again, the words came out like in a movie.
Ann cried a few minutes, either out of happiness or misery, I have trouble telling the difference. Then I woke up alone in a room full of light.
• • •
The sweat-soaked sheets twisted around my legs, making my first thoughts run to tequila paralysis. Then, when I shook the sheets off and tried raising myself into the hands-and-knees sick-dog position, I discovered I’d slept with my faceless alarm clock as a pillow. The hands had been circling for hours, tying hair and clock into a solid, immovable tangle stuck to the side of my head. Every ticktock boomed in my ear like bombs marching into Hanoi.
I leaned over the edge of the bed and spit some very old-tasting saliva into the wastepaper basket. I said aloud, “This won’t do.”
The pounding clock on my head and the dropping-through-space stomach were awful, waking up alone in my own bed was disorienting, but the bad news was the room full of light. Brightness meant I was horribly late for work. One hand on the clock so its weight wouldn’t rip out my roots, I stumbled across a pile of dirty clothes to the phone and called the Hard Wok.