The Devil's Dream (25 page)

Then she got
really
pissed when he took her straight home so he could go get his guitar and finish the song. Didn't take long either. It was done by sundown including the bridge, which gave him the most trouble. By dark he was running through it with Dewey, who kept saying, “Where'd you say you got that song, Johnny? You bought it offa some guy, didn't you? Come on, man, come clean.”

But the song was
his
, and as soon as Sam Phillips heard it, he knew they had something too. “All right, boys,” he said, poker-faced as ever. “Let's get you some drums.” The rest is history: Number One in Memphis, Number One in the South. But hell, there's no figuring it. “Wayfaring Stranger” didn't do shit; neither did the novelty tune Sam talked them into putting on the back of it, “The Robert E. Lee Rock”—it was kind of funny but it just didn't catch on. Plus there were several other records you might as well forget about, everybody else has.

But “Five-Card Stud” is over, and Johnny needs a drink in the worst possible way. He gets the boys in the band to take a bow, they haven't done too bad for a pick-up band, and Johnny tells them all that they can get their money from Loretta and does not say,
Because Vic don't trust me to keep the fucking money, that's why
. They shake hands all around. Johnny feels like he'll be seeing the young bass player before long, but for some reason he doesn't tell him that. Doesn't want to give him the big head.

Finally Johnny gets to the men's room, where he takes several long, slow swallows from that little pint bottle, so he's
ready
when he goes back out to the bar and sits down next to the blonde. He orders a beer and a double shot of bourbon on the side. She doesn't turn around, but she knows he's there. Johnny can tell from the way she holds herself, a woman who knows when a man's around.

Johnny's order comes, and he takes a long drink of the beer and leans forward and taps the blonde on the shoulder. “Excuse me, honey,” he says, “but I got to tell you something. You look just like my sister. My favorite sister, honest to God.”

The woman swivels around on the bar stool and he sees that she's older than he thought, but still nice, real nice-looking close up, big blue eyes with a lot of makeup. There's no point in a woman that looks like a man, Johnny has always thought.

“Really?” She sounds a little wary.

“Yessir,” Johnny says. “She died when I was twelve. You look just exactly like her.”

This line has never failed to have the desired effect, and now it's no different. She bites her pouty red bottom lip and says, “Oh, that's awful,” then “I'm so sorry,” sucking in her breath.

“So I reckon you'll just have to have a drink with me,” Johnny says.

“I reckon so,” she says. Her name is Sheila Calloway and she was supposed to come over here with a girlfriend who couldn't make it at the last minute, but since her sister had already planned to baby-sit for her, Sheila came on anyway. “I'm a big fan of yours,” she says shyly to Johnny, who doesn't ask her how big of a fan can she be on the basis of one hit. Instead he orders her another gin and tonic, she looks like she's had one or two already, and then she tells him that actually it's her anniversary, that's why she and her girlfriend were coming over here, it's been exactly six months since her husband left her.

“Where is he?” Johnny asks. You can't be too careful.

“Alaska,” she says. “He went to Alaska on a pipeline. He's kind of crazy,” she says.

Johnny moves over so that her thigh is touching his. “He must be crazy if he left you,” he says.

By the ragged way Sheila sucks her breath in, Johnny can tell she's hot. Real hot. She probably hasn't been laid in the last six months. They get some more drinks and Sheila tells him she's in dental hygiene, and Johnny says he could use some dental hygiene himself; then he imagines her leaning over him in a dentist's chair someplace, wearing a white dental hygiene uniform, brushing her tits up against his arm, putting her pretty fingers inside his mouth, rubbing his gums. Oh shit.

While Johnny pays the bill, Sheila looks at her face in the mirror of her compact, puckering her lips up and wrinkling her forehead as if she's asking herself some question, to which the answer is obviously yes, since when she turns back around she's got fresh lipstick on and she's smiling a big red smile. Johnny keeps his arm around her waist as they go out, and he's relieved to see that she speaks to nobody, nobody knows her in here, so nobody's going to worry about her. It's drizzling outside and some people are having an argument over in the corner of the gravel parking lot. The yellow neon lights spell out “Loretta's” against the warm wet darkness. Johnny opens the passenger door of the blue Ford for her. “Now you just make yourself comfortable,” he tells her. “I'll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” She's thick-voiced, maybe a little drunker than he thought, a little drunker than he likes them.

“I got to get my guitar and stuff,” Johnny says, and when he goes back into Loretta's for it, the kid that's trying to look like Elvis gives him the high sign. “Man,” he says. “That didn't take you long.”

“Hell, it's nothing but pussy,” Johnny says. “It don't mean a thing,” and he leaves the boys thinking that one over.

Loretta herself comes by to say, ”Glad you made it this time, hoss. You were real good too. Mighty fine.” Now if Johnny failed to make it some other time, he can't remember the occasion. He doesn't know what Loretta's talking about, but she's pissing him off pretty bad.

“Honey, you must have me confused with somebody who gives a shit,” he says, which makes Loretta's jaw drop down about a foot and her fat cheeks sag. Johnny goes out the door while she's just standing there with her hands on her hips, so scratch Loretta's, it's a dump anyway.

Meanwhile, Sheila's gotten kind of nervous in the car. “Listen,” she says when Johnny returns, “maybe I'd better follow you or something. I forgot about my car. My car's right over there.”

But Johnny's lost them this way before. “Aw, honey,” he says, nuzzling into her big blond hair, “we won't be out long. I just want to get to know you a little bit.” He puts a hand under her chin and turns her face toward his, to kiss her.

Just at the wrong moment, she jerks her head. “This car's a mess,” she says nervously. “I don't see how a star like you can let a car get like this.” The car is a 1950 Ford flathead V-8 which contains most of what Blackjack Raines owns in this fucking world, since he was evicted from his apartment just two days before the start of his tour. So he pretty much lives in the car these days, plus Vic's got him on this financial program to cover those bad checks and pay for the van he totaled last month, which wasn't his van actually, Vic is handling all this so maybe Johnny won't have to fuck around anymore with his parole officer.

“Honey,” he says now, “I've gotta come right out and say something to you. When I saw you sitting in that bar back there, I can't tell you what come over me, the way I felt, I mean. You look just like my sister, I swear you do. You look just like she would of looked if she'd ever of growed up, I mean. And I felt like, well, I . . .” Johnny hesitates, running his hand almost absentmindedly over her tits, while Sheila listens real hard to what all he's saying. He'd better be careful now; he'd better get it right.

“Well, you know I've had some trouble with the law,” Johnny says then.

She nods. Anybody who knows a thing about Blackjack Johnny Raines knows this. In fact, Sheila thinks she's probably taking her life in her hands to be sitting out here in a parking lot with him right now; she must be out of her mind.

“But it's all because I was a little orphan,” he says. “After I found my mamma dead in the snow, I just didn't see no sense in being good,” he says. “So I became a wayward youth, you might say. I went all over this country, honey, hopping freights, working here and there, picking apples, you name it. Sure, I got in trouble, but now some of what you've heard is publicity, to tell the truth. I served my time. And I'm good inside, honey, I really am, only I ain't had nobody to bring it out in me. When I saw you sitting in that bar, why, it just came all over me like an ocean wave.”

Now that he's got his hand under her sweater, Sheila's having trouble following. “Uh, what did?” she asks. She didn't get the part about the ocean wave.

“
She's the one
, I said to myself. She can see your true nature, I said to myself, she could bring out the good in anybody, and she looks just like an angel with all that pretty yellow hair.” Johnny is rubbing his face in her hair, which is kind of gluey, actually; she's got it all sprayed with something. He holds a breast in each hand.

Although Sheila has not exactly thought of herself as an angel before, she likes the idea fine. “I can tell you're a good man,” she says to Johnny.

“Let's go, then,” Johnny says. He's about to bust his pants.

“Go where?” Sheila tries to pull back enough to look at him.

“Why, your place,” Johnny says.

Now she really gets nervous. “Shoot, we can't go to
my
place,” she says, “I told you, my sister's there, staying with the boys, why, we couldn't ever go over
there
! Where are
you
staying?” she asks, peering at him. Sheila can't see Blackjack Johnny too good in the dim light of this parking lot, plus they've steamed up the windows now, messing around in the car. Sheila got married at seventeen; it's been years since she's messed around in a car. There's something sexy about it, for sure. Married people never do a thing in a car.

Johnny realizes he'll have to give up the idea of getting her to put on one of her dental hygiene uniforms for him. “I was real late driving into town,” he says, “so I just came straight over here. I was going to check into a motel after the show. Let's you and me go find us one with a Magic Fingers bed,” he says.

“Well, it is real late,” Sheila says thoughtfully, “but I think there's a motel out on the highway that stays open all night. Everything right around here is closed. I don't know about the Magic Fingers, though.”

Johnny starts the car and backs up, spinning gravel.

“Wait a minute! We never did decide where we're
going
!” Sheila's real loud; it's obviously true that she doesn't do this in the regular run of her life.

“I got to get me a room somewhere, honey,” Johnny says as patient as he can. “So why don't you come on and stay with me, just for tonight? I'm real lonely, and you're the best thing I've ever seen,” he adds, but Sheila has got her hand on the door handle anyhow.

“I
told you
, my sister's over there, I can't stay out
all night long
!” Sheila's voice is shrill, and Johnny realizes that he may have misjudged her a little bit, she's not as easy as she looks. Plus her eyes are too close together. But her tits were as big as grapefruits in his hands.

“Just pay me a little visit, that's all,” Johnny says. “I'll drive you right back over here. One hour, I promise. Scout's honor,” he says, shifting gears, edging out into the street.

Sheila hesitates. Rain patters lightly on the hood of the car; all the neon lights blur together in the rain-streaked window. The thing is, her married sister likes Blackjack Johnny Raines even better than Sheila does; she knows her sister would understand her having a little date with a star. After all, you can only stay heartbroken for so long, and speaking of heartbroken, Sheila can't even remember what her husband, Ralph, looks like. Of course that's her
ex
-husband, might as well call a spade a spade. Johnny's profile is real handsome, but she wishes he wouldn't smoke so much in the car, of course she won't say a word about it. It's clear that this man has suffered so much. He's got kind of a big nose, hasn't he, and that wide mouth, but he looks more sad than mean, she thinks, in fact he doesn't look mean at all, just handsome in a mean way. “Turn left,” she says, then, “Turn right.” She lets him keep his hand on her thigh; it's the least she can do when clearly he's led such a tragic life.

He doesn't take hardly any luggage when he goes to check in at the Moon Winx Motor Lodge, but apparently this is all right with the clerk, who is mostly asleep anyhow. Sheila looks all around the lobby carefully because of course
anybody
could be here, anybody from her church, or any of Dr. Gold's patients, or
anybody
, but nobody's around at all except for a Negro vacuuming the lobby. The Moon Winx is a fairly new stucco motel with a mostly tropical motif. Suddenly Sheila feels sexy.

“Honey?” Johnny is asking. “Have you got any cash in your purse? I just got a big check from Loretta, but of course they can't take it here, and my wallet's someplace out in the car.”

That messy car! He'll never find it, it'll take hours, and they don't have much time. Sheila giggles. “Here, you can pay me back later,” she says. “I just got paid yesterday,” and she gives him what he needs out of her billfold. Sometime between when she got in his car and the time they got here, she realizes, she's decided to go ahead and
do it
. It would be stupid to come to a motel and
not
do it. Everybody would think you had, anyway, so you might as well. Actually, she'd give anything if Ralph could see her right now, it'd serve him right.

Johnny keeps his arm around her all the way down the brightly lit sidewalk, until they get to room 34. “Here we are,” he says, turning the key in the lock.