Oh, did I not write that down? you say, then start spinning phantom jobs out your mouth, and they’re the best you ever did have, too: roller-coaster operator at Six Flags; Delta guide and driver for that two-part National Geographic article; day bartender at Silky O’Sullivan’s.
Your palms break sweat and you sit there, needy, while your work ethic and character are available for comment from strangers you wouldn’t share a joint with at a blues festival.
And you don’t get the job.
Those old failings showed through.
Not even lies helped.
Before all that long, you start telling those near to you that you went on interviews that turned out sorry when factually you never even made the phone call.
Jamalee dwindled out of hope in a few days longer than I’d taken to dwindle. We sat in the kitchen quite a bit after that and let the heat kick our asses so we didn’t have to do it. I worked on the remains of a case of beer a client had left next door. I think it had warmed in his car too long.
Our new values were hard to hang on to during a time of such stress. Of an evening, or just any ol’ time, really, Jamalee would say such things as “I guess banks are a bad idea these days,” or “There was a chop shop over past Cabool—they’d probably put us to work,” or “I don’t imagine you know of any wacky well-to-do folks who keep their mattress stuffed with twenty-dollar bills, do you, Sammy?”
I never answered out loud, merely made faces.
That gun was in the house, on her mind, and at each sunset I could feel we’d edged a bit closer to outright crime.
Already I could hear steel doors clanging and smell a lunch tray of shit-on-a-shingle and taste weak tea.
Then came that evening when the sunset depicted pink fingers raking a general blue and the ad appeared in The Scroll: Waitress position at Country Club. Nice atmosphere, $ potential.
WEST TABLE, MO., is a town that exists sure enough—it’s all there, the houses and shops and traffic lights, the church spires and shotgun shacks—but it’s not a town that stands out special from all the other towns you’ve drove past without slowing down. The country club perched where the town once ended, though now more new but not special town has popped up to curl around it.
The lane leading in has great tall pine trees edging it, giving off that wonderful shade those trees give and that smell that makes you want to nap and dream. A golf course occupied both sides of the lane. The lane had been paved black and awful smooth.
“I don’t know about this,” Jamalee said.
Jason leaned up and patted her head.
“Just be yourself and smile.”
“Be myself,” she said. “Be myself—that’s what has got me to here.”
Her hair belonged yet in a garden; she’d brushed on a green eye shadow and painted her lips a red one shade lighter red than her hair, the kind that makes lips look wet. Golden hoop earrings dangled. She wore a short, short black dress with bare shoulders and a snug fit. Spike heels elevated her above the category of midget.
The country club building lolled amongst a handsome stand of elder pines. The place had three levels but not in a stack, sort of in a spread, with a separate patio area at each level. The patios had round glass tables with, like, seaside umbrellas over them, striped real bright. The outside walls were of wood and native Ozark stone. The wood had been painted cream.
There were sounds from a swimming pool I couldn’t see.
“Oh, man, I don’t want to go in there.”
I found a space and parked.
“Jam,” I said, “we can stay or we can go.”
“I can’t just go. I must go in. I just must.”
“So, do what you’ve got to do, or hush up about it, one.”
The girl eased from the car, inhaled mightily, and went toward the door walking strong, stabbing those spike heels with every step. She kept her chin in the air and sent her body after it.
IT GOT NEAR to lunchtime and the parking lot filled. The members drove a lot of lush vehicles, mostly big-assed things a sharecropper could’ve raised a family in. There were some trucks with extended cabs and bloated wheels and several low-slung sporty chariots.
I had taken a seat on a narrow log rail that bordered the parking lot, beneath the pines in the casket-smelling shade. I avoided eye contact with the members who went by, plenty of them wearing golf cleats so they sounded like slow ponies on a hard road.
Jason had decided to walk inside, see what the delay was, tell Jamalee we’re getting hungry getting hot.
In a short time the two glass doors shove open the way saloon doors at cowboy bars did, and Jamalee stomps out with a pair of men flanking her. She’s poking those spike heels down like she’s trying to stab through to a vital organ.
She says, her neck tense, “Yeah, well, I’ll tell you what I think is ridiculous—you assholes are. That’s what.”
“That’s fine,” one fella says. Both fellas are dressed in that summertime-casual look that would be mighty dressy down in Venus Holler. “Just leave the club’s property, miss.”
“Yeah,” the other one says, “you’re giving the members a sight to have nightmares over.”
People coming in and people coming out began to stop. An amused little crowd was acquired. There were diamond rings, gold watches, shoes so ugly they must’ve cost a pretty penny, and Redneck Riviera tans. These folks were up high in the pay scales and insisted that you know it.
“I already got nightmares,” Jam said, “and you assholes are in every one.”
“You want me to call the police? I will. I’ll call the police. Is that what you want?”
“I want you to kiss my ass and call it orchid.”
“Every time you open your mouth, miss, you show why you don’t belong here, in the club.”
Soon as I got over there, close to Jam, I saw Jason coming through the crowd from behind. The crowd sensed he was with her, I guess, and gave way, until he stood beside his sis.
The other fella who’d brung her out is maybe forty-five, or in that phase of life, and he’s had a few drinks, I’d predict, and is standing there like a six-foot piss hard-on. He says, looking at the Merridew kids, “You people are the lowest scum in town.”
The crowd mutters and titters.
This expression of utter frankness takes over Jason’s beautiful face, and he says, “I don’t think we’re the lowest scum in town.” He didn’t argue that we weren’t scum, just disputed our position on the depth chart. It has always hung with me that it was Jason who spoke up for us. “Shoot, there’s folks—”
“Oh, shut your salad hole, nancy boy.” Mr. Piss Hard-on reaches over and pushes a finger into Jason’s chest and keeps pushing. “You are an abomination in the eyes of God, and you also get on my fuckin’ nerves. Disease-ridden—”
Baby Jam reached the man’s face with a swung purse; then her tomato head bent and she bulldozed it at his belly. He didn’t care much for that. He got his hands around her throat.
An old, elegant gent with whitish hair and a vanilla suit with a blue bow tie, said, “Hey now. Hey now, fellas, hold on here. Hold on!”
Jason hopped to it, bit the fingers of Mr. Piss until he let loose, then made a slack, floppy fist, not a very useful one, and kind of half threw a punch.
The man smiled like Santa Claus showed up unscheduled and brought him a punching bag that makes rewarding noises.
You could hear people suck for breath, mostly women, I think. One said, softly first, then again and again louder, “You don’t have to smack that boy.”
Jason tried to stand in there. His efforts were sort of valiant, but pathetic and comical, too, and mostly just a waste of his carbohydrate energy and nerve. The noises he made are probably still being imitated around there. He was handled as easy as a cat handles a guppy that has squirted out of the tank to the shag carpet.
Two members restrained Jamalee.
“You don’t have to smack that boy.”
There was a mean
redness on one of the kid’s cheeks, a blood spot below his nose, a look of permanent humiliation.
I guess this is where you uncover what “together” actually adds up to. This is the bunch that would have me. Multiply that by plenty.
I can’t say I knew for sure what was called for.
I stepped to the side of the fuss and feathers and hit the man a stomach punch that tore him from his hinges and sat his ass down.
“Now I am calling the police.”
“Fair fight,” I said. I got my face close up to the man still standing. I let him understand that there was oodles of danger in me; my head wobbled loose, three ticks off center. This scary face is all them such as me has to show this other world, the world in charge of our world, that musters any authority, gets any reluctant respect at all. If us lower elements didn’t show our teeth plenty and act fast to bite, we’d just be soft, loamy dirt anybody could walk on, anytime, and you know they would, too, since even with a show of teeth there’s a grassless path worn clear across our brains and backs. “He asked for it.”
I spotted a flicker in the man’s eyes, and that’s all I spotted before my ribs sprang loose and tried to eat my liver, or that’s what it felt like. My vision got suddenly consumed by black. Nose, cheek, chin scraped pavement. My breakfast bounced on me and splattered out. The crowd went “Uhh.”
“Fair fight,” somebody said, quoting me for ridicule. “He asked for it.”
I rolled over and looked up from the blistering pavement, and this dude in one of those ugly green uniforms janitors wear stood over me. He wasn’t a youngster—maybe fifty. He might’ve been five foot nine inches tall, but he seemed four feet wide. His hands had those humpy roadhouse knuckles that have been focused on in plenty of X-ray rooms on plenty of Saturday nights. His hair was gray, and the sun had burned him brown as meat loaf. The name over his pencil pocket said Burt. His eyes kept on me and he grinned and said, “That’s a special haircut you got, son. You mow it that way on purpose?”
If I’d’ve had that pistol handy, several histories would’ve took a hard turn at that exact instant. I would’ve let two rounds off in his fuckin’ kneecaps just to hear the bone-crack music. I would’ve put one in his motherfuckin’ head then and called it a happy accident. It was good, I suppose, that the pistol sat way across town, on a closet shelf, but it surely increased the heap of scorn dumped our way and received.
“Eat shit,” I said.
“Okay, son. I’ll need to roll you in batter and fry you up, first, prob’ly pour on ketchup.”
Oh, ol’ Burt was the comedy smash of the summer with the crowd of members, there, in that parking lot. They tee-heed, haw-hawed from down deep, snorted, pulled their sunglasses down and dabbed their giggly eyes.
That’s when Jamalee went off, lost it, stood back and let her rant come up and out of her, screaming.
She’d come all the way unleashed.
14
It’s Medical Tonight
SOMETIMES NATURE HAS this look where you want to hoot and shout accusations because the look seems so unbelievable, an obvious fake. I study these looks for the brief reward of them, and that night nature tossed me such a look. Rain clouds, all dark and muttering, were mobbing up out west, but long finger bones of sunlight showed through and played the range of colors like a range of musical notes, making a tune of colors from pink to plum and back to yellow all across the rim of the world.
Then the look went down, sank away, and night took control. You could smell the rain marching this way, and hear it, but you couldn’t see the clouds. I occupied the Ford alone, as we’d all slunk our separate ways since getting whipped at the country club. I had the King singing to me. My knuckles had scraped down to the ooze, and my ribs kept messing with me, shooting pain like rockets if I moved too sudden.
I sat there trying to avoid certain thoughts—the kind that’ll chew the meat clean out of your head if you open their cage. I didn’t have any liquor. I wanted to block those certain thoughts. All I’d ate was beans and dessert. I could’ve stood some liquor, or crank, or maybe snorted some Mexican brown, even.
I didn’t know what to do anymore.
Now that I had values I was terrible slow in reaching decisions. You get to parsing out right from wrong, and half-right from half-wrong, and sort-of this from sort-of that, on down to both ways suck horrible but this way sucks one horribleness less.
Jesus Christ. It can take you two days to decide on breakfast.
I don’t guess I was very long out there in the rumbling night before Bev came over and helped herself to the passenger’s seat. She had two bottles of beer, which smelled to me as gold would smell if it smelled.
“Beer man,” she sang low. “Cold beer here.”
“You are beautiful.”
Bev watched me do the deed to the first bottle. Then she held the other out to me. “Go on, Sammy, you take it, I’m fine.”
I took a deep drink.
“You sure? I mean, it’s your beer.”
“Slow down, slow down—I’m not going to ask for it back. You’ll start belchin’. Take sips for a while. I love this song. It gives me tingles.”
The song was “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone.”
“He ain’t called the King for no good reason.”
“I admire what you did today. What you tried to do.”
“I came up short. It’s happened before, but I almost can’t stand it.”
“Sounds like you don’t feel eager for that rough stuff.”
“I ain’t. I ain’t eager. I don’t like it at all, but it’s always on my menu.”
“That makes what you did even better, Sammy. You faced your fear and ate it.”
“It’s been eatin’ back some, but this beer’s slowin’ it down.”
She reached over to my face and fanned her fingers near the pavement scrapes on my cheek and chin and the thin scab along the underside of my nose. They didn’t hurt much, really, but still that wind flutter felt nice; merely the attention helped, I’d guess.
“Don’t fret,” she said, staring at my face. “You weren’t that pretty to start with. If you get scars it’ll just add mystery to you.”
Her feet were bare. The toenails were painted pearl. She turned and sat with her back to the door and plopped her feet on my lap. There was an enchanting stripe of smell leaking from her toward me. She wore a pale green dress, with a thin strap around the neck to hold it on, but her shoulders weren’t covered and if she leaned forward part of her tits teased you from the side. Hot summertime attire; I’ve always dug it. Her hair was down and beaming in the dark.
“You don’t think I’m pretty?”
“You’re pretty tall. You’re pretty lean.”
“Pretty thirsty”
“Pretty horny—right?”
Well, she didn’t have to invite me twice. I gingerly hopped a little sideways and got to her, still holding that beer bottle ’cause there was no flat place to stand it, and started on her neck. I suppose I steered that free hand south a bit too eager to be called smooth.
“Whoa, now, Sammy take your time, take your time. I don’t turn into a pumpkin at midnight or nothing. You’ve got plenty of time. Kiss me awhile. I’m not about to run, hon. Kiss me on the lips.”
I tossed the bottle out the window. Maybe there was a swig left.
“I might not be at my best, Bev, all banged up this way.”
“Oh, relax. We’re just a couple of blondes, out in the night, willing to have fun. And fun is here. So have it, hon, have it.”
Raindrops pinged on the Ford, heavy drops falling straight to strike the hood or the roof and sound like rim shots. The music blended sort of okay. The wind got pushy.
I broke from one clinch for air, and said, “You ain’t havin’ me be Skeets Benvenuti in your mind, are you?”
“Why, no, huh-uh.”
“ ’Cause truly, I don’t care if you do. If you want.”
“No, listen, hon. What I’ve been ne
eding is a little midnight redneck therapy, and, baby, that’s you.”
I went back in for more, and mumbled, or maybe it was murmured, “Aw, I’ve been in need of this.”
“I know, I know. Sometimes it’s the only cure, a medical treatment.”
“It’s medical tonight, Bev. I’m grateful you’re the doctor.”
“Let’s go in my house, hon, to the bed. I don’t want you to bruise your young self when I bounce you off the walls.”
SHE, TOO, FAVORED candles. Four or five flickered. The rain had turned serious and gusts tossed the white curtains around and made candle flames hop.
“Oh, boy, hon,” she said. “I forgot all my secrets for a minute there.” She sat up a bit and reached for a cigarette, lit it. “I’ll bet you’ll remember my name now.”
Apparently I’d said Marsha one time, at a moment she found funny.
Sex is the thing you can get the furthest behind in but catch up to the fastest. Three and a half months of want had been drained away, and I had two months more of want to tap into after a minute or so.
I said, “Do you think it speaks ill of me that I could be happy here?”
“Not ill, but it speaks of you.”
I always did like to figure I’ve done most everything between the sheets twice, but Bev had done most everything between the sheets twice with most everybody, and I couldn’t claim close to that. I sure couldn’t. I’ve pondered it a lot, but I couldn’t lay claim to such battalions of sack memories. Bev could wiggle here and wiggle there and get special feelings running wild in me without opening her eyes. Just a twitch and a lick and a secret touch and I was in way over my head and happy.
“Sammy, after you lay with a woman you don’t start thinkin’ it amounts to a big deal, do you? You don’t start to grab ahold, gum up the works, butt your own opinions in, do you?”
“Not lately.”
“Not lately?”
“Not ever. Except once.”
“Uh-huh. Marsha?”