by Kade, Teagan
Jemma steps in between us. “Get lost, Dale. She’s way too good for the likes of you.”
Dale is clearly drunk. He stumbles in a wide arc. “Like I’d settle for your dirty cunt.”
Jemma gives him the finger and he drifts away into the thicket of people at the front of the stage. “What a cock head.”
“You know him?”
“Dale Tempest. Town idiot.”
I scan the dancefloor again but don’t see anyone that appeals. It’s the singer on the stage that’s pulling my attention, breaking into a solo with stacked arpeggios and technical proficiency far and above this backwater dive of a bar. He lands on a note, holding it with vibrato as his head lifts and our eyes meet.
Something connects us in that moment. Do I know you?
“Get the fuck off the stage, Rainbow!”
It’s Town Idiot, hanging around the front of the stage with a beer in hand, heckling.
I pull close to Jemma’s ear. “Why did he call him Rainbow?”
“The singer?”
“Yeah.”
“I think his name is Storm or something. He’s an out-of-towner, Millertown, seen him a few times. Cute, huh? But he seems all dark and moody, you know? Too much effort.”
“Huh.”
“Go back to your fucking barn house, you over-the-tracks inbred,” the heckler continues, voice raw and loud enough for the whole bar to hear.
To his credit, this Storm guy plays on unfazed. He simply looks over the head of heckler.
He looks at me.
Out the corner of my eye I see Dale bring his arm back and launch his beer towards the stage.
The glass collects the singer in the side of the head, ricocheting off to shatter against the back wall. The lighting’s dark, but even from this distance I can already see a thin trail of blood running from a cut in the singer’s head.
The band stops.
Jemma stiffens beside me. “Holy shit.”
‘Storm’ stands there, reaching to his head and finding blood, and that’s it. He literally dives from the stage, tackling Dale to the floor. A crowd closes in and I’m unable to see what’s going on. People are shouting. Another glass breaks. There’s a sound like a gunshot from the back.
I see the two of them lift from the floor, Storm with Dale by the scruff of his shirt running him across the floor to collide with a pinball machine in the corner. Someone else picks up a bar stool, smashing it over his head. After that, all hell breaks loose.
Jemma grabs my hand. “Come on. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
We race through crashing bodies, dodging a projectile as the cacophony continues inside.
We push out into the thick of night just as sirens sound in the distance.
People are now streaming from the bar, joining us outside dazed and confused.
Blue and red lights spin around the exterior of the bar as two patrol cars come screaming to a halt in clouds of dust.
I recognize Dan as he gets out, donning his hat as he races inside, his other hand on his revolver.
“Does this happen all the time?”
Jemma kicks at a rock in the ground with her heel. She hugs herself against the cold. “People just don’t get along like they used to. When the mill closed down in Millertown a lot of people lost their jobs. It’s basically a slum out there now. Once you get over the tracks it’s a whole different world.”
“And they come here to Rosie, from Millertown?”
“Yeah. There’s nothing left over there. Every shop’s shut up, every bar and restaurant gone. They come here and trouble just happens. It’s just the way it is now.”
She can read my mind. “Al, you’re not thinking of going there, are you? Doing one of your little feel-good pieces?”
“Millertown?”
“Yes, Millertown.”
That’s exactly what I’m thinking. A town turned to ruin and urban decay in the heart of working America. It’s precisely the kind of piece that would go over well with my editor, but something about the look in Jemma’s eyes is warning me off.
“Seriously, Al, promise me you want go over there.”
I cross my fingers behind my back feeling about five years old again. “Promise.”
This seems to placate Jemma enough as a group of people burst from the doors of the bar. I recognize Dale stumbling away down the street with his friends holding him up, but I’m more surprised to see the singer of the band, that Storm guy, in handcuffs. He doesn’t even protest. He simply walks with his head down, black shirt now even blacker with blood that streams from the gash in his head. He dips his head as he’s manhandled into the back of the cruiser.
Dan emerges from the bar. I have an urge to run up to him, to tell him it wasn’t this guy’s fault, that he didn’t start it, but I think better of it.
It’s not your fight.
“Come on,” says Jemma, tugging my arm. “I’ve got a half pack of Oreos and a DVD box set starring Ryan Gosling that are going to pick this night right up.”
“Sure.”
There’s a tap on my shoulder. I turn to find Dan standing there. He tips his hat. “Ladies.”
I can’t help myself. Something about moral integrity blah-blah. “Hey, you know that guy didn’t start it, right? Dale threw the glass.”
“The boys at the station will sort it out. Don’t you worry now.”
“I’m serious, Dan. The guy, that singer, didn’t do anything.”
He places his hands on his hips. “Things have changed around here, Alice. ‘That guy’ is a troublemaker. His parents were too. If he is innocent, I promise you we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Really?”
“Really. Worst case he spends an hour or two at the station being cleaned up before being released. No harm.”
Dan smiles. I trust him. He’s always been fair, just. I can’t imagine a world where he’d seek to deliberately do someone harm.
The cop cars leave one by one. Dan points to his cruiser. “Fancy a ride-along, little lady?”
“Your idea of a date is a ride-along?”
“Well, I had planned something a little more romantic, but duty called. Come on, how about it?”
Jemma’s prodding me in the back. “Go!” she mouths.
I give in. “Fine.”
Dan looks like he’s just won the lotto. “Great, this way, ma’am.”
“Don’t ever call me ma’am again.”
He nods. “Duly noted.”
I get into the passenger seat. The dash is clustered with police equipment, the radio buzzing a constant stream of acronyms and jargon.
In the side mirror I see Dan standing at the back of the car. He pulls off his shirt. Carved out by the neon glow of the Dixie’s sign above, you could wash laundry on those abs. I look away as he throws his work shirt into the boot and slings on a simple blue tee.
He slides into the driver’s seat and picks up the radio handset, relaying a series of similarly nonsensical syllables while smiling at me all the while.
I wave to Jemma as we take off down the road.
“So, officer,” I begin, “what did you pick me up for?”
“Loitering, soliciting.”
“Soliciting? Soliciting who?”
He turns sideways and smiles. “Me.”
“You’re getting a bit ahead of yourself there, buster.”
“Hey, a man can dream, can’t he?”
I take the compliment quietly watching the road stretch out before us, headlights cutting through the fog.
“Shouldn’t you be at the station sorting things out? You are the sheriff, after all.”
“The boys are more than capable. Deputy Manning will have it under control.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Being a cop?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s like any job really, but at least here there’s no one actively trying to kill you every second. You don’t have to watch the road for IEDs.”
“Just r
oad kill.”
“Right.”
He has one hand on the steering wheel. I take in his arm and for a moment imagine it wrapped around me.
It’s not so bad. In fact, the thought lingers.
I allow it.
I wind the window down a little to let the country air stream in and freeze the side of my face. “Where are we going?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“Where were you going to take me?”
“Barnies maybe.”
“For ice cream? What are we, fifteen?”
“Give me some credit, Alice. I haven’t dated in a while.”
“Not enough bad girls for you here in Rosie?”
“You think a good guy needs a bad girl? You think I’m a good guy?”
“You tick the appropriate boxes. Wait, you don’t have a dog, do you?”
“Actually…”
“What’s his name?”
“Her name is Annabelle.”
I slap the dash. “Case closed.”
“Got her from the pound.”
I slap the dash again. “God, stop!”
He lifts his hands off the steering wheel in surrender, but I can see the cheeky grin he’s trying to suppress. He knows he’s a catch.
I sit back a little deeper into my seat. “As far as I can assume, you’re an upstanding police officer who wouldn’t dare dream of upsetting the moral equilibrium.”
“Assuming makes an ass out of you and me.”
“Come on, tell me the last time you broke the law.”
“Why, that’s easy. It was with you.”
“With me?”
“Old Man Benbrook’s farm, the lake.” He looks at me quizzically. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”
“The time we went skinny-dipping? That was hardly trespassing. Old Man Benbrook could barely walk.”
“But he had a shotgun.”
“And one good eye.”
We both laugh freely. It feels good. I have to admit I find myself easing. A cool gust of air breezes through the open window, my hair flapping against the headrest.
Dan’s looking at me out the corner of his eye.
“What?” I question. “What is it?”
“I’ll prove to you I’m not all Mr Super Serious. He pulls the handbrake and the car goes skidding sideways down the road. I scream, clawing onto the side of the door as dust and gravel whip around us and Dan wrestles the car into a barely visible dirt road off to our left. We hit a culvert and my head almost hits the roof.
My stomach’s just returning to my body when the back of the car kicks out and we turn again.
Just when I’m about to scream for him to stop, the car slows to a crawl and Dan switches off the headlights.
“God, Dan, what now? You’re going to murder me out here in the woods?”
“You don’t come to these woods to murder someone – well, murder them with pleasure maybe.”
I’m confused. “What in holy hell are you talking about?”
“You’ll see.”
The car creeps along slowly, the engine just murmuring ahead as we come into a clearing and then turn into what appears to be a smaller road that runs along next to the river.
“There.” Dan points to what looks like blobs of black in the distance.
I squint. On closer observation it looks like a group of parked cars.
As we creep closer to them, Dan begins to chuckle under his breath. I look into the distance and gasp. “Are they doing what I think they’re doing in there?”
“You bet.”
“You’ve brought me to the local make-out spot? I’m flattered and all, but-”
“Oh just shut up and watch, will you?”
I zip it as we come barely a car-length away from the happy couples. The two in the car closest to us seem particularly ‘active’. They’ve got the radio blaring. I can still hear them over the top of it.
“Observe.” Dan switches something on the console and picks up the radio mic. He hits another switch. His headlights and emergency lights come on at the same time, bathing the whole lurid scene in glorious light.
“Attention! Attention!” he booms through the megaphone. “This is private property!”
The poor, naked individuals who have been lit so are shocked into statues. I’ve never seen a look of such terror and shock before.
A second later they burst into activity, cars rocking and clothes flying in the cramped interior of their vehicular abodes as Dan sits on the horn and continues to mock them through the megaphone. “Trespassing is a serious offence. You may be jailed.”
One car reverses out so fast it collects a tree. The bumper hangs off the back as the shirtless driver tries to regain some control.
I’m in stitches. These poor kids are going to be scarred for life.
Dan just keeps at it, honking and flashing his lights. One poor boy wrestles with his T-shirt like it’s a wild octopus, his girlfriend screaming as she looks for her bra.
“That’s enough, please.” I can barely breathe I’m laughing so hard. Tears are streaming down my face.
Dan’s laughing too. His voice breaks up as he speaks through the megaphone. “Um, that’ll be all. Carry on.”
I slap him on the shoulder as he switches off the emergency lights and pulls back onto the road.
“That was cruel,” I tell him. “I may have wet my pants, but cruel all the same. That’s what you do for fun around here?”
He’s beaming. “Sometimes. It gets kind of slow, if you know what I’m saying. There are only so many times you can swing by the donut shop.”
I eye his body. It hasn’t seen a donut in years. “Somehow I don’t think you spend much time with my deep-fried friends.”
“You’d be surprised.”
We’re back on the main road. My stomach’s actually cramped up from all the laughter. This is a side of Dan I never knew existed. I heard his old man passed away not long after his mom. His dad was a general in the army, a real strict man who made Dan, an only child, call him ‘sir’ and line up for random room inspections. I always thought Dan would grow up to be just like him, a real chip off the serious shoulder, but am I wrong?
Losing his dad would have been hard, but I also imagine it would have been a relief too, as twisted as that sounds. Maybe now he’s free to live his life. Maybe he’s free to… find someone.
“You haven’t said a word about your time in the army.”
He sighs, the burden returning. “To be honest, Alice, it was a tough period for me. I had to make many decisions I’m not proud of, decisions that will stay with me, haunt me until the end of days. Am I proud to have served my country? Sure. Am I convinced what I did was right and just? Not so much. I guess that’s why I came back here, to a simpler life and a clearer cut of right and wrong.”
“Right and wrong is never clear cut. You should know that better than anyone.”
“Perhaps, but out here it’s easy to pick the bad apples. They don’t fall far from the tree, and when they’re rotten there ain’t no turning them rosy and red again. That’s the war here. That’s the truth.”
I decide not to press the issue. “Where are we going now?”
“It’s a surprise.”
A few miles up the road we pull into a driveway. Dan gets out and undoes the gate. We drive through and it begins to come back to me. “Old Man Benbrook’s?”
“The old man’s passed, I’m afraid, but yep, one and the same.”
We head down the side of the house, down a separate drive and out into the scrub. Finally, we stop. The car’s headlights illuminate the same lake we skinny-dipped in all those years ago. I’m trying to suppress a pang of nostalgia, but it wells up inside me all the same. It’s a lot smaller than I remember, more of a pond, actually.
I can’t even recall why we were out here in the first place back then. It was probably my idea, my way of doing something naughty to break my good girl image.
I do remember I didn’
t want anyone to see me naked. I made them all turn around while I undressed behind a tree.
Dan breathes out. “Just thought you’d enjoy seeing the old place again.”
I open the door and step out. The air’s chilly against my arms. Goose flesh rises up on my skin.
“What are you doing?” says Dan from the interior of the car.
I give him a mischievous grin. “What do you think?”
I pull my dress off over my head and let it fall to the leaves. I’m feeling invigorated, free as I stand there shivering in my bra and panties.
I run down past the car and leap off the end of the jetty with a ‘woooo!’.
When I hit the water, my grand idea appears a little less wise.
It’s absolutely chill-your-ovaries-off freezing.
I thrash up and down.
Dan stands by the car laughing. “You are crazy, girl. I’ll give you that.”
My teeth begin to chatter together. “Are you coming in or what?”
“Me?”
“I don’t see anyone else.”
He thinks on it for a moment. “Oh hell.” He begins to undo his shirt and belt. Even under the moonlight I make out the hard planes of his chest, the dramatic vee that runs down into his pelvis as he steps out of his pants. He hops around removing his socks. I have to laugh.
I wrap my arms around myself, my nipples diamond hard against the insides of my arms as I tread water with my legs below.
Down to his jocks, Dan takes the same path and comes leaping in beside me with a giant splash that sends water rolling up the banks in giant waves. He comes up spluttering.
“Wooowwweeeeeeeeee that is cold.”
I’m actually shivering, arms wrapped around myself and my teeth beginning to chatter like tiny tea cups on a saucer. “Maybe this wasn’t quite like I remember.”
Dan swims over, bobbing his head just above the surface. “If I recall, we were actually skinny dipping back then.”
“You don’t call this skinny dipping?”
“We’re still wearing clothes.”
I feel reckless, slightly unhinged as a wicked thought slips into my head. I reach under the water, behind my back and unclasp my bra, pulling it off and with a great deal of effort tossing it onto the bank. “Not anymore.”
Dan’s staring at me with his mouth open. I can’t tell whether he’s mortified or excited. “You’re still wearing your panties.”