Something Bad (7 page)

Thibideaux said something to Deena Lee, who pointed past Gabe, around the curved end of the counter, toward the unisex bathroom in the rear corner. Thibideaux shuffled along the counter turning heads as he went, except for those of the two young men, who hurried back to their booth and hung their heads over their food.

Gabe didn’t want to look at him when he passed, so he hunched over his plate, pretending to be looking for the choicest piece of ham for the next bite. When Thibideaux came close, Gabe felt an overwhelming need to turn and look, and at the same time, an urge to curl into a ball. He heard the shuffling walk stop to his left and the sensation of a close stare gave him a feeling of anticipation. He tried, but he couldn’t resist. He swiveled on his stool and faced Thibideaux—their heads were almost on an even level. Gabe’s eyes flicked from the high-arched eyebrows, to the dark eyes, and then to the grin. A sick feeling arose from his abdomen, and a nervous panic headed in the opposite direction. He wanted to say, “Can I help you?” but his lips seemed incapable of forming words. He felt dizzy, but his heart pounded out a stable rhythm. Thibideaux moved on.

Gabe sat paralyzed. Memories flew around in his head, but only one came to rest long enough to make an impression. The scars. Thibideaux’s thin, straight lips weren’t turned up into a grin. The upturns at the corners of his mouth were thick scars. And not fresh ones, either. They sounded a frightening familiarity of experience, but without a contextual backdrop the terror seemed suspended somewhere between reality and a dream. The heightened uncertainty was accompanied by an extra heartbeat and Gabe had to draw in a deep breath to push his dizziness away. He turned in time to see Thibideaux enter the bathroom.

Gabe wanted to leave. He wanted to run out of the Edge and not come back, but he couldn’t move. He wanted to go, but he needed to stay. He pushed his plate away on the counter and stared in the direction of the bathroom. He wondered what Thibideaux wanted. Why was he here? And why did he stop to stare?

Five minutes passed and the bathroom door remained closed. Seven minutes, and a weak sensation of having to pee caught Gabe’s attention. He wondered how many other patrons were holding their bladders for fear of having to disturb the strange little man.

A regular from Porter County answered Gabe’s question. “God damn it, I got to go,” the man said and stomped to the back of the diner. “If the twerp isn’t finished by now, I’ll have to push him out with his pants down.”

The man pounded on the door three times and shouted at the frame, “Anyone home?”

No response.

He pounded again, harder this time. “Anyone home?”

Again no response.

He looked around the diner and shook his head. He cocked his arm back and hit the door square in the middle. The latch gave way and the door swung open, hitting the wall inside the room and bounding back, almost closing. The man stopped the door with his hand and poked his head into the opening. Gabe heard the beginnings of an apology from the man, but it was stopped mid-flow. A muffled “What the hell?” echoed from the room.

Gabe jumped to his feet and took two steps toward the bathroom, two other regulars right behind him.

The man stumbled out into the main room. “He ain’t there.”

Gabe pushed the door open and looked inside; the other two men crowded around his shoulders. The room was empty. There was no back door to the bathroom and the painted-over window was held closed more tightly by the multiple coats of paint than by the twelve long wood screws that anchored the window sash into the two-by-fours that framed the window. Gabe looked up. The fan was small and intact, and it operated off of the light switch.

He backed out of the bathroom and pushed on the adjacent door. It was the only other way out of the diner, aside from the front door, but Teddy kept it locked from the outside with a large padlock and hasp.

To discourage a brute-force charge to freedom, Teddy had mounted a white-on-red sign that he had stolen from a Denny’s on his last vacation that read, “Emergency Exit Only. Alarm Will Sound If Opened.”

Gabe looked back in the bathroom. Down along the baseboards, next to the toilet was a small opening, but it was only large enough for a small cat to use, which was why it wasn’t boarded up. Gabe knew it was there for Teddy’s cat, Three, who came and went as she pleased, although she was mainly in the building at night when her primary job was to keep the rodent population at zero.

He’s small, but not that small, Gabe thought. He’d have to be able to snake around the toilet and compress his body to the size of his head. He was a little one, though.

Gabe returned to his stool, but he didn’t sit down. Too nervous to eat, he slipped a couple of dollars under his plate and turned for the door, then stopped. He whirled around and found Deena Lee standing at mid-counter, staring at the bathroom. He caught her eye and raised his eyebrows in a concerned look.

She mouthed the words, “I’m okay,” and smiled.

Gabe shifted into third gear and turned his truck onto the gravel county road that ran past his farm. His mind was still trying to make connections. He pushed in the clutch, slammed the gearshift into fourth, and popped the clutch. The truck jerked a little and slowly came up to speed.

He looked down at the speedometer and backed off the gas a little. There was something strange about Thibideaux, beyond the weird stuff. Whenever he thought about the little man, he felt the aversive shove of one of those single trial learning experiences, like when aluminum foil hits a tooth filling.

He slapped his hand against the steering wheel. He couldn’t figure out what tied him to Thibideaux. But there was a tether. And every time he tried to reel it in, it snapped without revealing its anchor. Did the little man hold a key to his missing years? And what was the cost of finding out?

T
EDDY SHOOK THE
deck of cards in his left hand and frowned at John Johnson.

Gabe chuckled. Teddy could disappear in a crowd of two—everyone had a friend from their hometown who looked just like him.

“How many cards you want, John-John?” Teddy said.

“Goddamn it, I told you not to call me that.”

Billy laughed.

John contorted his face in Billy’s direction, and Billy lowered his eyes and stifled his laugh.

John gulped from his glass of Jack Daniels like he was trying to wash the topic away in a single mouthful.

Teddy brought the side of the deck down on the table with a thwack. “If you don’t want us to call you that, then why don’t you tell us what the J stands for? Odds on the street are for John. John John Johnson. I’m just going with the odds.”

John drained his glass. “Screw your odds. It’s none of your goddamn business. Why does everyone get so weird about my middle name?”

Teddy chuckled. “It’s kind of like seeing a woman’s bra. You see a lot more of her in a swimming suit, but you’re just not supposed to see the bra. Danged if the bra don’t get you more worked up.”

“Wish Press was here,” Gabe said. “He knows.”

John glared at Gabe.

Billy’s frown pinched his eyebrows together. “Why won’t he say?”

“That’s the mystery of the year.” Gabe said. “Teddy, you remember when we got him so drunk he puked on the counter of the Edge?” Gabe turned to Billy. “We tried to get it out of him, but he just kept saying he’d tell it when the time was right.”

John slammed a pair of cards down on the table. “Just give me two, goddamn it. I swear. You guys spend more time yakking than playing.”

Gabe drew a long sip from his half-full glass of Jack and shivered it down.

“I know,” Teddy said as he slid two cards across the table to John. “Why don’t we bring Misty Rondelunas in on it?”

Billy looked at John and giggled. “Yeah. She’d be able to get it out of you. She’d probably do you just to solve the mystery.”

John threw his cards on the table, but Teddy wouldn’t let him speak.

“What would you do if she came on to you, John-John?” Teddy laughed. “You can still find your pecker, can’t you?”

“Screw you. I don’t want to talk about names. And I don’t want to talk about Misty. I want to play cards.”

Billy leaned forward. “What’s the matter, John? You got a thing for her?”

“Shut up, Billy.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Teddy said.

Gabe poured another glass of Jack.

“You guys can go to hell,” John said. He pushed his chair back and waddled to the bathroom.

“He’s probably one of the few in the Tri-counties who hasn’t had Misty,” Teddy smiled at Billy. “You’ve had her, haven’t you, Billy? You went to high school with her.”

Billy blushed. “Naw. Never did. She came around a couple of times, but every time, she was going with someone else.”

“That wouldn’t stop her.”

Billy blushed a deeper red. “I know. But I didn’t feel like it was right for me to jump in.”

“Jump in?” Teddy said. “You mean fall in, don’t you?”

Everyone laughed except Gabe.

“She was a cheerleader wasn’t she?” Teddy said.

Billy nodded and looked down at the table.

“But she don’t wear no underwear, right?” Teddy looked at the ceiling and rubbed his chin. “At least that’s what I heard.”

Gabe finally leaned into the conversation. “I know for a fact that she don’t wear underwear. You ever seen her in them white pants she wears at Doc’s office? You can see right through them if the light’s right. I can tell you she ain’t a real blonde, unless she’s dyeing the wrong end.”

“If she went without when she was leading cheers, I bet it made for some special school spirit,” Teddy said.

Billy frowned. “Naw. She wore underwear when she cheered. Funny thing, though. Boys would sell their Momma to sit in the front row to watch her kick her legs up and do the splits. Same boys who probably seen it all without the underwear.”

Gabe took a long drink. “Just like with the bra. What’s erotic leans toward the unusual, even if it’s less revealing than what you see all the time.”

“Gabe, you ever had any of Misty?” Teddy said. His laugh was brief.

Billy stared.

“Naw. She’s too young for me. I take a long look every chance I get, and I do get the fantasies. But I’d probably keel over from heart failure if I ever got the chance. I’ll leave her to the younger boys as long as she keeps giving us all a show now and again.”

The laughs were terminated by the sound of the bathroom doorknob.

Gabe leaned forward, toward Billy. “Why’d you have to invite John to the games. I can’t stand to be around him more than a few minutes at a time.”

Billy lowered his voice. “He invited himself. What was I supposed to say?”

“How about no?”

John walked to the table and pulled his chair back.

Teddy giggled. “Hey, John. Why’s it every time we mention Misty Rondelunas, you have to go into the bathroom for a while? Can’t you wait and pound it at home?”

John stood behind his chair. He didn’t join the laughter.

“Look,” John said. “If you’re going to spend the night talking about Misty, you can deal me out.”

“You know, Misty was asking about you the other day,” Billy said. “Said she heard that bald guys are better in bed. I told her you’d be willing to prove it right or wrong.”

“Screw you,” John said. “I’m out of here.” He leaned across his chair, gathered his change and headed for the door.

“Just close your eyes when you get home and pretend the missus is Misty,” Teddy said. “Oh, sorry. I guess you already had yours for the night.”

John slammed the door on the laughter.

“I know,” Billy said. “Why don’t we ask Misty to join us in the card games? We could play strip poker instead of quarters. She’d go for it, for sure.”

Gabe reached for the deck. “If Wanna got wind of that, she’d want in, too. She’s been bugging me about getting in the card games. You guys want her and Misty in the same room?”

Teddy put his hands up and pushed at the air. “Not unless she leaves her temper at home. Wanna’s a lot of fun when she’s calm, but something always seems to set her off.”

“She wouldn’t last long with Misty around,” Billy said.

Gabe took a long drink of Jack. “Don’t worry. I already said no to her.” He finished his shuffle and started dealing the cards.

Teddy picked up his cards and rearranged them in his hand. “Speaking of names, where’d Wanna’s name come from? I heard some things, but no one knows for sure.”

Gabe didn’t raise his eyes from his hand. “What did you hear?”

Teddy looked at Billy and then back at Gabe. “I heard your Momma was a hippie, with a sense of humor like Wanna’s. They say she had a middle name to go with Wanna that was real funny, but she chickened out at the last minute and just left it at Wanna. Others say her name was supposed to be Wanda, but it was misspelled on the birth certificate and your Momma just left it that way. Which was it?”

Gabe sipped his Jack and smiled. Even his best friends didn’t know about Wanna and him. “Wanna don’t want anyone to know.”