Hick (13 page)

I wait in the car for about five minutes before deciding that I’d rather go into the bar and piss off Eddie than stay out here and die of boredom. I’ve been hearing bits and pieces of conversation from the sidewalk: Who’s dating who, Should I have bought that bag, Uncle Ted bought a boat. There’s a kind of ease to it. Comfort.

People are different here. Beige. The women wear knee-length skirts and flat shoes. The men wear brand-new cowboy hats and don’t swagger.

Two pale ladies in hats come strolling by. One of them stops to adjust her purse. I guess with so many bags of new-bought stuff to contend with, it’s hard to get it all straight. They chatter on like two birds on a wire about Jenny and the ungodly wake-up hour for the swim team. They think it’s too early. I get sick of listening to the trials and tribulations of whether or not Jenny should’ve joined the swim team and decide to go in. I open the door and sweep past them, but they can’t be bothered to notice. I mean, not with Jenny having to wake up at five on a Saturday and all.

I walk in and it’s like I just walked into a commercial for forest fires. Everything inside is made of logs, with fake branches and trees like a woodland retreat. I guess rich people like to put the outside inside. There are no seats at the bar, just saddles, one after the other. Sitting on a regular-style barstool is not an option. I take a saddle near Eddie, playing pool by himself. Behind him in a glass case is a stuffed bear, eight feet tall, his mouth froze open and his claws ready to swipe. It looks like if Eddie just took one step back, it’d all be over.

He looks at me, annoyed.

“Thought I told you to wait in the car.”

“You gonna teach me to drive or what?”

The bartender takes a keen interest, stopping what he’s doing to observe our mismatch. He’s a plump man, pink like a pig. He’s wearing a dapper new-looking denim shirt, pressed and ironed. Looks like his jeans are ironed, too.

“Not now. Not since you disobeyed a direct order.”

The bartender chimes in, uneasy with Eddie seeming too much like the real thing in a town full of Disneyland cowboys.

“Hey, Mister. She can’t be here,” he says, drying a glass.

“Sure she can.” Eddie shoots. “I can take my niece wherever I want, can’t I, Luli?”

He winks, sly, as the seven ball drops in the corner pocket. I don’t answer.

“That true, Missy? That your uncle?”

I look up. Eddie aims for the five ball, leaning in. There’s a stale smoke hanging over us, sinking into the floorboards. Eddie hovers over the table, waiting for my answer, pretending to set up his shot.

“I guess, sir.”

“You guess?”

“Yup.”

“Well, then, I guess you should be leaving”

Eddie freezes mid-shot. I can tell there’s gonna be trouble. Something in the arch of Eddie’s crooked back makes me know that the next step is gonna be a step down and out. The next step is gonna prove we’re too poor and ignorant to be mixing with dignified folk.

“Um, Eddie, maybe we should go back to Lloyd’s?”

The bartender perks up at the sound of the name.

“Lloyd? Lloyd Nash?”

“Yup.”

“You two friends of Lloyd’s?”

“Friends,” Eddie sinks the five ball, “is an understatement.”

“He said Eddie’s like a son to him,” I blurt out, sounding shrill and desperate.

“That so?” The bartender starts to look nervous.

“Yup.” Eddie sinks the three ball, leaving only the eight ball left.

“Well, um . . . hell! Friend of Lloyd’s is a friend of mine. You wanna drink?” He holds up a bottle of Seagram’s 7.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Eddie sinks the eight ball, playing it off, casual.

“Well, well, that’s some pretty sharp shooting.” The voice comes from the front of the bar, some newcomer just snuck in from the sun.

To say the newcomer is an ugly man is putting it nice. Real nice. He’s got a face that’d make a freight train take a dirt road. He’s got faded everything, not just-bought, like the rest of the town, with gray stubble peppering the bottom of his face and a tooth missing, smack-dab in front. He takes a seat, sideways, leaning against the saddle, looking gritty down the bar.

And now he is looking at me.

“Well, it’s hotter then a French whore with two pussies out there, huh?”

He unbuttons his collar.

Look, I’m not trying to say I’m some kinda beauty queen or princess priss from Prissonia, but the way he’s looking at me, it’s like he wants to eat me up right there. And there’s something in his look that’s making me nervous and shamey and weak, like my knees are about to wobble out from underneath me. Eddie comes over and stands beside me, protective. I like this new side of Eddie, like I’m his girlfriend.

“I like your hat,” the stranger says, making nice.

“it’s not a hat. it’s a Stetson.”

“Well, then, I like your Stetson.”

“You play?” Eddie nods towards the pool table.

“I reckon I can, been a while but—”

“You a betting man?”

The bartender hands Eddie a drink, eyeing the stranger, wary.

“All right. Let’s make it a hundred.”

The stranger starts to smile crooked, meeting Eddie in the eye.

“Well, well. All right. You’re on, then.”

The bartender and I share a look, both of us thinking that this is how all the bad things in the world begin and that there is no doubt these two are the men for the job. The bartender pours me a drink.

“Shirley Temple, kid. Made it special, just for you.”

“Thanks, Mister.”

He leans in, dimming his voice to a whisper,

“Listen, kid, we don’t want any trouble here, so, you know, if things start looking bad, maybe you could call off your uncle there and tell him you wanna go back to Lloyd’s.”

I nod back, assuring, squinting my eyes like we have an agreement, man to man.

Eddie racks up the balls, giving it a little flourish at the end to show he means business. The stranger fumbles with the pool cue.

I sip my Shirley Temple and try to act casual, but how can you when Eddie shoots in every single ball, each one after the next, missing the eight, on purpose.

The stranger looks flustered, disappointed. He goes to the table, his only chance a solid damn near the side pocket. Tough shot. He misses off the bank. Eddie shoots in the eight ball and starts to laugh.

“Well, there, Mister, now maybe you’ll learn some manners.”

The stranger looks sunken, shaking his head and scratching his neck, stubbly.

“You got me, Mister.”

“Well, live and learn, I guess.” Eddie’s being a real pal now.

“Listen.” The stranger leans in to Eddie, quiet-like. “I can’t go back to my wife a hundred bucks in the hole. she’ll have my head, if you know what I mean.”

The stranger looks up at Eddie, pleading. “Maybe we could play one more, you know, double or nothing.”

Eddie looks at the man like he just landed off the moon.

“You must be one dumb crazy fucker to wanna lose two-hundred bucks.”

“All right, then. How bout a game for two-hundred straight up? That worth your time?”

The bartender and I share a look. This is just too pathetic.

The stranger looks at Eddie.

“Could be.”

Eddie walks over to the table and starts chalking up his cue.

The stranger and Eddie shoot to see who goes first. The stranger wins. Eddie comes over and stands beside me at the bar, drinking his drink and watching the man, pathetic in his stance. The stranger makes the first shot. Eddie nods, not thinking much of it. The stranger makes the second shot. Eddie shifts his weight and sips his drink. The stranger makes the third shot, the fourth shot, the fifth shot, all the way to the end when he sinks the eight ball, like it’s nothing much to write home about.

I look up at the bartender, helpless. The bartender shrugs.

Eddie stands there, still, blood boiling underneath.

The stranger meets his gaze, blank, but somewhere behind his eyes there’s a sneer and a twinkling, born bad. He’s proved Eddie’s untrue grit.

“I believe you owe me a hundred dollars. I’ll take cash, thank you.”

Eddie stares at the man, sizing him up.

“I’m not paying.”

“What? I didn’t hear you?”

“I’m not paying.”

“Oh, okay, well then, in that case . . . I’ll make you a deal.”

The stranger comes up close to Eddie and starts whispering in his ear, looking over, here and there. I catch his eye quick and he looks away, guilty. Eddie listens and listens, asks him a question and listens some more. The bartender wipes off the counter, trying to make-pretend he’s part of the wall. I’m the only one who senses something bubbling, something filthy and unkind.

Eddie comes sidling over, leaning his elbow on the bar, putting his hand on my shoulder, nice.

“Now, Luli, we got man stuff to discuss now, so I want you to just go back there and wait a spell.”

“Back where?”

“Back there.” He nods toward the bathroom, quick.

“Nuh-uh, no way.”

“Luli, look, I’m in trouble here, all right, and I need you to help me, can you do that? Can you help me?”

I hesitate, looking to the floor for an answer.

“C’mon, darlin . . . you like that? You like that when I call you darlin?”

He picks up my chin now and starts talking quiet.

“I think you do. I think you like it a lot. I bet there’s some other things you’d like, too. Am I right?”

I bite my lip and nod, barely. I can’t stand it. This is a special bar
trick I know by heart. He’s writing the lines now. Somehow this got turned round and he’s writing the lines. I just want him to call me girlfriend names and make nice and pull my chin up. I just want him to stay like this, protective.

“I guess.”

“You guess. Well, okay, then, just go back there and wait a spell while we talk business, quick, and then we’ll go for a nice drive, maybe get some ice cream.”

Something doesn’t add up. Something doesn’t add up and I’m letting it not add up and I don’t know why. There’s something pulling me, shifting back and forth.

Here are the gears. There’s this one about getting called sweet names. There goes that one about learning how to drive and a fantasy date with an ice cream cone. There’s this other one about some sneaky bet off to the side. There’s this one, too, about naysaying. Then there’s this one, this lumbering gear, about wanting to ride off into the sunset with Eddie, treating me nice. Can you hear them shifting? Can you hear them shifting back and forth, back and forth, jamming up, getting loose, shifting forward, shifting back and getting stuck all over again?

The bathroom in the Million-Dollar Cowboy Bar is more like a few bucks. There’s a light buzzing overhead, trapping a few dead bugs, in silhouette squares on the ceiling. The room seems painted green until, upon closer inspection, you realize there’s actually not one bit of green in it at all, but the light above bathing everything white into fishy.

In the mirror, my face looks spooky and worn down, like some kind of broken-down ghost, left over November 1st. I’ve been waiting here for about three minutes, crunching gears, and I don’t know what I’m waiting for, but I know it’s not good.

There’s a squeaking and a shifting and, finally, a lock into place and next thing I know I’m heading out the door because this math just does not add up and I write these lines, this is my show. But before I get there, the door opens and I find myself face to face with the ugly stranger. He stands there looking at me like a wolf looks at a sheep. He’s got a long nose, stretching too far down, almost to his
lip, skinny. I decide to put my head back on my shoulders and get this thing squared away.

“Let me by, Mister.”

He stays put, blocking my way, staring.

“Why don’t you take a picture, it’ll last longer,” I say, leaning against the sink, trying to act casual. If he won’t let me by straight, maybe I can sidle through sideways.

“I wish I could, believe me. I wish I could.”

He starts to come closer and I stand my ground, not wanting to seem scared. You got to treat lowlifes like horses, if they smell fear, they know they got the upper hand. I’m wondering when Eddie is gonna interrupt this little romance but I have a feeling, a broken-down kind of feeling, that this one is on me. The light flickers above us and if this man looked bad standing in the dim light of the bar, in the green fluorescent he looks like twenty miles of country road. I can’t believe it but he’s starting to salivate. This I’ve never seen before, so I’m real-quick lost in a strange fascination with the spit building up on the sides of his lip. I got to get out.

“Well, Mister, it’s been nice meeting you and all, but—”

“You ain’t going nowhere.”

“Oh yeah, keep dreaming.”

And with that I march right on past him, straight for the door. My plan works perfect except that he grabs me by the hair and pulls me back towards him, whispering in my ear, “I haven’t got my hundred bucks’ worth.”

I think I can actually hear my heart cracking into bits and pieces, falling clink clink clink down the green sink drain. I muster up the courage, trying to get my soul back out the sink, and ask, “What are you getting at, Mister?”

“You’re the bet, little girl. Your uncle lost.”

“What? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Where’s Eddie?”

“You’ve been traded.”

He chuckles, pulling my arms behind my back and swinging me into the nearest stall. I struggle against him, squirming in and out of his reach, lashing out, but it’s no good. For a skinny little fucker he can fight. He forces my head back into the metal stall, cupping his hand over my mouth. I bite. He cackles out, pleased.

“I see we got a live one here.”

He grabs my wrists with his other hand and lifts them back behind my head. I am waiting for Eddie and sinking into the realization he’s not coming. I am squirming and fighting and clawing and squirming, but he’s wearing me down. He and his breath and his skinny long nose and his gritty teeth and his gray stubble chin. Each little outburst is leaving me more and more exhausted, panting, trying again, panting again. He’s stronger than me and it’s not a fair fight. But we all know about fair in this life. that’s something for movies with courtrooms.