North Dallas Forty (17 page)

Richardson and his girl and Sledge huddled together and observed the group with an amused awe. Sledge’s mouth hung slightly open.

“Drink for my friends.” Claridge was on his feet screaming toward the bar. “And water for their horses.” A waitress hurried to the table to take orders. I asked for a Coke.

“A Coke? A Coke?” Claridge yelled at me. A grin broke across his face. He pointed at me and looked at the other faces around the table. “This guy is doin’ dope—dope—do you understand? He’s crazed.”

I squirmed down in my seat.

“Look out.” Claridge dove under the table. “He’s got an ax. He’s a ritual killer.” The sound of his voice from under the table seemed incredibly funny and I broke into a giggle. Everyone at the table looked horrified.

Fortunately the stage lights came up and an anonymous Texas twang announced, “Rock and roll’s only full-blooded Blackfoot, Little Richard.” To the sound of “Good Golly, Miss Molly” the tiny curtain zipped open and behind a solid-white baby grand piano sat Harlem’s Hiawatha. He was magnificent, dressed in a beaded white buckskin suit with twelve-inch fringe. He wore a leather headband and a solitary feather. His eyes and lips were outlined with eyebrow pencil, grotesquely exaggerating his facial expressions.

Claridge peeked over the top of the table at the stage. He moved his eyes back and forth surveying the assembly of friends. Suddenly, he leaped to his feet and broke into a long high-pitched howl that first startled, then flattered the grinning singer.

Little Richard drew his face into an eye-rolling grin and waved limply at Claridge, who howled again. Everyone, with the exception of Fran, Claridge’s date, laughed. Fran slid down in her seat and tugged at Claridge’s sleeve.

Little Richard was starting into a new arrangement of an old Hank Williams song when the double doors opened, admitting Bob Beaudreau and Charlotte Ann Caulder. My eyes followed them to a small table in the back. I watched her for several minutes before my brain waves overwhelmed her. I could see her eyes clearly across the dark expanse as she looked at me and smiled.

Little Richard finished the set. Everyone at the table screamed, stomped, and whistled while Claridge kept up a piercing howl. As soon as the curtain closed, Steve Peterson abandoned the two girls at the table end and moved next to Claridge. Draping his stubby arm over Alan’s shoulder, he began whispering in his ear. While they huddled, Crawford ordered another round of drinks and began to suck on his little finger. When his finger was sufficiently soaked, Crawford held it up and inspected the saliva dripping down, then leaned across the table and shoved it into Peterson’s ear.

“Wet Willy,” Crawford cried. He and Claridge both broke into cackling laughs. The women all seemed disgusted by the spittle running out of Peterson’s ear. Peterson seemed disgusted too.

“Goddammit, Andy,” Peterson yelled, flinching away. He quickly yanked out his shirttail and dug into the violated ear. “Don’t do that.” He appeared ready to cry.

Richardson, his date, and Sledge got up, said they were going to a club in south Dallas and quickly left. “Wet Willy,” Claridge screamed gleefully as his spit-soaked finger seemed to penetrate at least to Crawford’s midbrain.

Crawford had been turned talking to someone at the table behind him, and he vainly tried to turn away from the invasion. In the process he spilled his drink all over his date, Susan Brinkerman.

“Ooh.” Susan jumped up and brushed off her skirt. “Andy, look what you’ve done.”

“Fuck it.” Crawford tilted his head and screwed a finger into the canal, wiping out the saliva. His face was strangely contorted.

“What did you say?” she asked, her eyes wide and her voice trembling.

“I said,” he pronounced the words slowly, carefully forming each with his lips; he looked directly into her face, “fuck it.”

She jumped slightly as the words hit her in the forehead.

“... and ...” he continued, leaning closer to her twitching face, “... fuck you too.”

A short cry escaped through her nose. She had her hand clamped tightly across her mouth. The daughter of a well-to-do Dallas family and last year’s Southern Methodist Homecoming Queen, Susan just wasn’t ready for unbridled insanity. She turned to run out, but Crawford’s thick fingers closed on the back of her neck, caught her in midstride, and yanked her back to her seat.

Susan sat down meekly, her head down and her eyes tightly closed. Crawford’s fingers were still digging into the cords of her neck. She seemed in great pain but remained silent. As soon as Andy released his grip, she doubled up and began to sob.

Poor Susan, I thought, she finally got to see Andy “Sock it to ’em.”

I waited for somebody to console the sobbing girl. Nobody moved.

Claridge raised his empty glass and began to howl, Crawford raised his glass in response.

“Fucking cunts,” Claridge screamed. They both laughed.

The waitress arrived with more drinks, and everyone, except the quietly whimpering girl and me, continued as if nothing had happened. I frowned and slumped in my chair, saddened by the inconsolable girl caught in her own time warp.

As I pushed up from my chair, I noticed Crawford had his finger in his mouth and was eyeing Claridge. I didn’t even break stride when the commotion behind me signaled the third, but by no means the last, Wet Willy of the evening.

The table Charlotte Caulder shared with Beaudreau was against the wall. There was an extra chair on the aisle; I turned it around and straddled it, my arms resting on the back. Beaudreau was delighted.

“Hey Phil, how’s ever’ lattle thang?” His fat face lighted up.

“Fine, thanks,” I said calmly, not betraying the tricks the mescaline played with his face.

“Honey,” Beaudreau said, gesturing toward me with his open hand, “this here’s Phil Evans.”

“Elliott.” I raised two fingers and waved. “Elliott.”

“Huh?” He was startled. “Oh yeah. What am I thinkin’—Phil Elliott, he plays football.”

Charlotte smiled slightly. “We’ve met.”

“We were wondering if you all might join our party?” I lied, gesturing toward the increasing confusion in front of the stage.

“Great idea.” Beaudreau scooped up his drink and was out of his chair in one movement. “I been wantin’ to talk to ol’ Andy about this letter stock I got.” He started toward the front, hesitated and turned back to Charlotte. “You comin’?”

“I’ll be along.”

“Yeah ... yeah,” I said. “I’ll bring her.”

“All right.” He headed toward the stage. His coat swung open and I glimpsed the blue flash of a revolver stuck in the waistband of his red Sansabelt slacks.

“Why do you date that creep?” I knew my eyes were shiny from the mescaline.

“You’re hardly in the company of the royal family.” Her expression remained unchanged.

“I know. I know.” I watched Beaudreau being greeted. “But at least they’re unarmed. Does he have a permit to carry that gun?”

“Yes. His father’s a big financial backer of the sheriff. The sheriff made Bob a deputy.”

A burst of laughter and the sounds of breaking glass came from the table.

“What’s going on?”

“Wet Willy.”

“What?”

“Wet Willy,” I explained. “They lick their fingers and stick ’em in each other’s ears. It’s a test. Not unlike jousting.”

Charlotte wrinkled her nose and opened her mouth in a mock expression of vomiting.

“Puke,” was all she said.

“Twentieth-century man,” I said, shrugging.

I looked up from the ash tray I was spinning, directly into her eyes. Ever so slight movements at the corners betrayed an ambivalence toward me.

“Are you afraid of me?” I asked, continuing to watch her eyes for clues.

“No,” she said quickly. Her eyes couldn’t agree and she dropped them from my gaze. There was an uneasy pause. Finally she began again.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “You’ll think this is silly.” Her eyes came up to meet mine. “But I’ve had this strange feeling ever since I first saw you.”

“At Andy’s party?”

“No, no, long before that—over six months ago—in here.”

My mind raced backward, but as usual I could barely remember this morning. I needed a clue.

“You were with Janet Simons,” she continued. “Chuck Berry was here and you were on crutches.”

Janet Simons came flooding back with painful clarity. I turned my eyes back to the ash tray and unconsciously spoke out loud.

“She was a Lesbian.” The sound of my voice surprised me.

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, why didn’t somebody tell me? I thought she was having her period for six weeks.

“What a scene that was,” I added. “If I hadn’t been in a cast, I think she would have kicked the livin’ shit outta me. I never knew whether it was sympathy or fear that I’d beat her with the crutches.” I laughed again and then fell silent. There was another long expectant pause.

A loud crash carried our attention to the group by the stage. Alan Claridge had jumped onto the stage, knocking over a microphone, and was hurriedly taking off his pants. Fran, his date, and several waiters seemed to be the only people upset by the scene. As the waiters raced toward the undulating man, Crawford intercepted the closest with a stiff arm to the chest. The blow hurled the waiter back several feet. He landed with a thump and skidded crazily, ending tangled in a patron’s legs beneath a table. The others slowed their approach as Andy stepped between them and the bizarre strip show on the stage.

Claridge by this time had removed his pants, undershorts, and jacket, and was working on the buttons of his shirt. As each article came free, he was wadding it up and throwing it at Fran. She remained motionless as the wads bounced against her. The shirt came off. He twisted it into a ball and hit her full in the face. She never moved.

Grabbing his cock, Claridge began the motions of masturbation, pointing the limp organ indiscriminately around the room. People ducked and dodged, as if they were afraid of being hit. A few women screamed politely and one couple got up to leave, but the rest remained, watching intently.

The naked man was laughing and pointing his penis at Fran, who had put her face into her hands.

“Goddam you, Fran,” he yelled. “Look at me, you fucking whore.”

He jumped from the stage, grabbed her chair, and jerked it from under her. She fell to the floor.

The meaty sound of openhanded slaps roused the paralyzed waiters and they tried to move to the girl’s assistance. Crawford intercepted the first one and pushed him over a table. The waiter leg-whipped a middle-aged woman in the face, knocking her in a heap on the floor.

“My God,” Charlotte gasped, standing up.

I grabbed her and headed toward the door. We were in my car heading north on Greenville Avenue before either of us said another word.

Charlotte broke the silence. “I have to go back. Bob will be wondering.”

“Don’t worry. The police will give him something to think about.”

“Will they arrest them?”

“No,” I said, thoughtfully, half my brain still caught in the swirl of bodies and emotions at Rock City. “Unless your boyfriend tries to shoot his way out, they’ll probably take ’em out to pacify the crowd and then turn ’em loose. If that woman wasn’t hurt too bad.” I could still see her head bouncing off the dance floor.

“Well, then,” she asked, turning to look at me, “why did we run out?”

“ ’Cause I’m stoned and holding,” I said. “It’s one thing to strip naked and beat up women in public. It’s two to life for taking dope. Besides it was a way to get you alone.”

“Oh.” She was silent for a moment. I could feel her mind dealing with the alternatives. “Well, then I must go home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Lacota.”

“Lacota? Goddam, that’s fifty miles from here.”

“Do you want to take me back to Rock City?”

In twenty minutes, we were heading south and east toward Lacota, a square little Texas county seat built around the proverbial red-brick courthouse.

“Are you from Lacota?” I was leaning over the steering wheel, searching the sky for the source of a bright blue flash I was sure I had just seen.

“No. My husband.”

The thought of her being married was shocking and I was immediately lost in a hallucinogenic swirl of moral ramifications. The mescaline would make compromise difficult but not impossible.

“He was killed two years ago near Da Nang,” she answered the question she knew I was asking.

“I’m sorry,” was all I could muster.

“No, you’re not. You’re just trying to be polite.” She was right. She could read my thoughts. All sorts of perverse and diabolical feelings and ideas spilled from my head onto the seat between us. She didn’t seem to notice. “But nothing’s wrong with being polite. I appreciate the effort. He didn’t like the war, but he didn’t know how to quit.”

“Who does? Quitters never win and winners never quit. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you’re the best at it.” I steered deftly around a large furry creature sitting in the middle of the road. “It’s not whether you live or die but if you win the game. Yu know, the old you-gotta-decide-which-sized-frog-you-wanna-be-in-what-sized-pond-and-then-win-win-win syndrome.” Jesus, I was high. Charlotte looked at me in amazement. I shrugged my shoulders. “Don’t look at me. I just say it. I don’t know what it means.”

She continued her story. “Well, when he finally decided to quit he was already over there. He was a career officer and it really confused him to be on the wrong side. He kept trying to decide what his duty was and finally resigned his commission. It made him feel terribly guilty. He was killed while his resignation was being processed.”

“It’s a shitty war.” I hadn’t meant to say that. It just jumped from my mouth. It sounded trite and foolish. I was too stoned to deal with the emotions she was skirting. Life, death, and foreign policy were a little heavy for a mescaline tripper behind the wheel of a six-thousand-dollar, stereophonic, and temperature-controlled automobile. Waves of cold chills made me feel as if my skin were shrinking, squeezing me smaller. Paranoia pulled at the corners of my eyes and my mouth turned dry. My lips stuck to my teeth in a maniacal grin. I mashed down on the accelerator and the car leaped ahead. The sound and response of the engine reassured me. I was in control. Everything fell back into place. Bob Dylan was crying from the rear speakers.