Nitro Mountain (5 page)

Eventually Rachel said, “Just come to the bar with me and order for yourself.”

I stepped off the stage, tripped and fell into a table. Bottles smashed and crashed and spun on the floor around me. I landed so hard on my bad arm that fire shot against the tip of my tailbone, the kind of pain that makes you laugh at first. Before I could understand what I'd done to myself, Jennifer was standing over me. “What the hell you think you're doing with my man?”

“Jennifer,” I said. “Rachel.”

“You know her name?” Jennifer said.

“And I know his,” Rachel said.

I got to my knees. “Wait now.”

“Sounds like you know more than that,” Jennifer said.

“So does he,” Rachel said.

“Calm down, y'all.” I was holding on to a chair, trying to get up. “My arm hurts.”

People were loud in the room and we couldn't really hear one another. I was standing there hurting like a motherfucker.

“How's about
I
go find out somebody's name?” Jennifer spun around and clattered back to the bar. The stool next to Daffy was open and she took it and went right into some conversation that was supposed to make me jealous. Talking and laughing and drinking. They hadn't earned any of it.

“And what was all that about?” Rachel said.

“Give me a cigarette.”

“Excuse me?”

A trio of old-timers watched her leave. I knew not to follow her. Don't even look. These were guys who'd been sitting at the table I'd knocked into and were now mopping up the mess with napkins and wringing the hooch back into a glass. “He done it now,” one said, looking from me to the closing door. “That's how they go,” another said. “Wait now,” the third one said, pointing at me. “You the feller knocked over them beers? I expect another one.”

“Me too,” I said, and ran to the door.

It was drizzling in the parking lot. Folks were huddled at a table, smoking under the big Bud Light umbrella. None of them was Rachel. I needed her for the battle Jennifer was mapping out inside, but her car was gone. I saw the dry gray patch where it had been, dark and wet all around it.

During the second set my arm sunk into some deep hurt. I couldn't stay focused and it felt like my teeth were falling out. Jones's songs were good enough to keep me together for a while, but eventually shit started failing quicker than I could help. My fingers tingled when I plucked the strings, and I watched those two, Jennifer and Daffy, with a distant kind of hate. On the dance floor they stumbled into a broken two-step that nobody would've been jealous of except for me. I was playing on autopilot, buoyed and bobbing over the changes and trying my best to ignore what I seemed to be helping make happen. As the song ended, he tipped her from their two-step into a dip and I saw his biceps.

Silver was in his whiskers and his grin showed a dirty glint of gold. I decided it was time to report him.

By the end of the night, though, I didn't know where he'd gone to. Jennifer either. But I had an idea. I went out to Jones's van, found his cell phone on the floor and dialed.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

It was a good question. I didn't know where to begin.

Eventually it became clear I didn't have an emergency. Just a bad-business claim. I even told them about the drugs, but they said, “Right. Look, if the guy's not there, what do you want us to do about it? We gotta catch him smoking it, selling it. What's his name?”

“I don't know. But you'll find everything if you just get over here.”

“What does he look like? What was he wearing? Or driving? How will we know him?”

“He has tattoos. The one on his neck's Daffy Duck.”

“Is this man's name Arnett?”

“I told you, I don't know his name.”

“An officer is coming.”

Jones packed up fast, saying he didn't want cops asking how he planned on getting home, and since he was my only ride we rolled out before the law showed up.

It was a late winter day, clouds moving low and fast like they were being rewound. Mom let me use her car and I found a two-hour spot on the old square, right in front of the brick courthouse where I was to be tried. Statues of Confederate heroes stood behind a short pyramid of cannonballs. I guess it was appropriate to have them out here, an encouragement to people like me: It's okay, we all lose eventually.

The district clerk's office was closed when I went up, so I walked down the block past the library and into the coffee shop a few streets over. I'd never been in the place before and had no idea anything this welcoming existed in Bordon. Thinking I might have to break out into some spontaneous genius shit in the middle of an argument in order to save my ass, I ordered four espresso shots. “Quadruple whammy,” the teenage boy behind the register said. “No screwing around.” He nodded like we shared something private. “Welcome to the quad squad.”

I drank it walking back to my judgment day, and it got my heart racing and my stomach aching. A line a few folks long waited inside a hall. Before joining them, I rushed to the bathroom and let go of what the coffee had loosened. Considering the court fees I knew I'd be paying, I decided not to flush. As I left the stall, a man came in. He paused a moment, like someone had just insulted him, and said, “Ugh.”

He walked back out and I followed behind him. His suit was wrinkled in the back from sitting. Turned out he was Wesley, my lawyer. He showed me to a cheap pew, then went up and stood near the judge's throne, opening his hands while he talked and closing them when he stopped. I'd hired him with the last of my little savings. In the corner, a projector screen showed a man in orange pleading not guilty to something he seemed very guilty of.

“That's not what I'm asking,” the judge said to him. “I want to know if you'll be representing yourself or not.”

“Ain't guilty!” The man stood up and did a doggie-paddle dance in his handcuffs. Some guards took him away and the screen went blue, like the room had suddenly filled with cartoon water. The whole episode made me feel better about my situation.

When my turn came, they set another date and Wesley got the out-of-state restriction dropped. “I'm free to go?” I said.

“For now.”

“I can still drive and shit?”

“Innocent till proven,” he said, bringing out a handkerchief and pulling at his nose with it.

“Probably lose my license, right?”

“We're still waiting on the blood tests.”

I felt like an idiot for not knowing this was all that was going to happen. The spot on the street was still mine for another hour, but I didn't know what to do with myself and drove back home and slept the rest of the day.

The shelter finally called and I went in. A sex felon with eyes that moved quickly and independently of each other told me I'd made
Crime Times
. He kept up with the paper, looking for friends and family members he hadn't heard from in a while. “What the hell you been doing, huh?” he said. “You supposed to be an example for us shitheads, ya shithead.”

“I know it,” I said. “But listen, the charge is bogus. I didn't do anything. They pulled me over for false reasons.”

He shook his head. “That mugshot of you,” he said. “You look rough, bubby.” Most of his teeth had been knocked out in prison, and here he was calling me rough. “If they do end up booking you,” he said, “I'll write my cousin, make sure he don't give you no hard time.”

“I appreciate that.”

“And you ain't gotta worry—I won't tell nobody else.”

“You're not the only one who reads that trash,” I said.

“Maybe not, but I'm the only one that understands it.”

After my shift I went looking for the paper. It wasn't a proud moment, walking into Joy Imperial and seeing my face on the front cover in the rack. I dropped it on the counter next to the six-pack I'd pulled from the cooler.

Rachel was working, and I hadn't looked up at her yet. “That all?” she said. She rang up the beer, put it in a plastic bag and then threw the paper in. “For free,” she said.

“Didn't have to do that.”

“I kinda do,” she said. “It's like required. If you make it in, you get a free copy. Want another?”

“No thanks.”

“It's not a bad picture,” she said. “You look fine.”

She, on the other hand, looked older since I'd last seen her. Maybe she was. She pushed the bag toward me and said, “Look on page three when you get home.”

The beer was Dad's. He had a mini fridge in his room where he liked it kept. I took two and went to my room, cracked one open and scanned the paper till I found me, then turned to page three, and there was Daffy. From the front you could see only the fading bill on his neck. His name was Arnett Atkins.

Charged with video voyeurism. Felony.

Those nights at my parents' place, I lay fetal in bed and prayed to God for something good to happen in my life. Afterward I felt bad for even asking; I'd never requested a blessing for anyone else, but here I was, whimpering,
Please, more for me, I won't throw it away this time
. What worried me was that I didn't know if I'd actually be able to not throw it away. All matters lately seemed to slip through my fingers. Because of the prayers, I felt all the more deserving of what was happening to me. I didn't believe there would ever be an end to it, except maybe for the end.

One morning, Mom drove me to the Bordon library so I could check my email. She was going to run a few errands and come back in an hour to pick me up.

The library was clean and warm, like a classroom, and that made me feel out of place. I had a message from Jones in my inbox. He'd sent it almost a week ago, telling me to call him back as soon as I could. He'd been offered an opening slot to tour with Marshall Mac and the Deputies, a popular band around the state. Marshall liked to let his band spread out into long jams while he rapped about his tractor truck—some hillbilly hybrid rig. That was the title of his latest album:
Come Take a Ride in My Tractor Truck
. I asked the librarian if I could use the phone.

Jones answered on the first ring. “What's happening?” he said.

“Just got your email.”

“Can you do it? I was worried about you.”

“I'm all right.” I almost jumped in the air. “You ain't found anybody yet?”

“This tour's going to be a long one. Most folks have lives.”

“Suckers.”

“Can you make practice every evening this week?”

“Yeah. Wait. I don't know. Where is it? I don't got a car yet.”

“We're over in Ashland, still practicing in the storage unit. There's a couch to crash on. You can live here till we leave, for all I care. I've done it before.”

I knew then that despite how selfish my prayers had seemed, they'd worked. “I don't want to take your bed.”

“I've got the van. And the nests of a couple other birdies. Don't worry about me. I'll pick you up tonight. Bring a sleeping bag and a box of diapers.”

I handed the phone back to the lady behind the desk. “I prayed for it,” I told her. She was around my age but had the sorrowful smile of a woman who'd worked one job her whole life. “I prayed for it and I got it,” I said. “I'm going to be opening for Marshall Mac.”

“Never heard of him.”

“That's okay,” I said, and took her hand. “I can get you on the guest list.”

She pulled away and studied me. “You're planning to play music with your arm like that?”

“Like what?” I said, and played some air bass at her.

Jones drove me over the mountain into Ashland. The van reeked of body odor, cigarettes and spilled beer, like it always had, but now I was part of the band and felt connected to the stink. The passenger bucket seat was sprung and I could feel the wires under me. We didn't listen to music or talk much, just kept the windows cracked with cigarettes burning.

The storage unit was packed to the air vents with instruments and sound gear. The couch against the sidewall was covered in set lists, notebooks, empty cigarette packs. I picked up a page full of words, and at the bottom there were some verses that hadn't been scratched out:

If I had my way I'd leave here tomorrow

Hitch up a ride and ride on down to Mexico

But there's just one thing I gotta do

“Don't read that,” he said. “I don't go peeping through your stuff, do I?”

I dropped it onto a pile of duct tape and broken drumsticks.

“It ain't done yet,” he said.

“What's it about? What's the one thing you gotta do?”

“That's what I'm figuring out. Anyway, it ain't about me.”

He showed me around the room, where the light switch was and how to open the door with a crowbar from the inside. There was also a space heater that started throwing sparks if you left it on for more than three hours. “And if the cold doesn't wake you up,” Jones said, “the smoke will.”

After he left, I gathered his papers off the couch and made my bed. I read through his lyrics late into the night. Some of the songs I'd heard him sing before, and I could hear the melody behind the words. Others were new to me, a lot of pieces, verses and hooks. I'd never had the chance to look at anything like this. His songs seemed so simple that I never thought of the time he put into them. I decided I was going to play bass better than I ever had, just for him. This guy was good. He could be my escape.

The next morning I packed my sleeping bag into Jerry's bass drum and headed over to Hardee's for some coffee and a biscuit. I used as much free cream and butter and jelly as I could. When an employee came over and told me I had to quit taking the stuff, I tossed a packet of half and half into my mouth, chewed it up, swallowed the cream and spit the plastic into the countertop's trash hole.