A Far Gone Night (14 page)

I blew a kiss in Henry’s direction as we left. He gave me the finger. We went out into the bar and, once again, experienced a hush, although not as profound as the first time.

Back outside, in the cold air, there was no sign of Puking Cat or his buddies as we walked across the gravel parking lot to the Packard. I half expected it to be damaged, or at least keyed, but it was not. We got
in,
Moon started the big engine, fiddled with the heater controls.

“Puking Cat?” I said.
“Really?”

“No. His name in English is ‘Panther Claw,’ which he prefers. I call him ‘Puking Cat’ to get under his skin.”

“It worked. He seemed a little sensitive to his nickname. Still, he’s a tough guy.”

“Was.”
Moon glanced my way. “He did give you a bloody ear.”

“Gave me a tidy little headache.”
I would have touched the side of my head, but restrained myself. Someone might see.

Lunatic put the Packard into gear and we slowly pulled out of the parking lot and headed back onto the road, turning right on the highway, opposite direction from Crow’s Wing. The night was dark and cold, and snow that had warmed to water was now freezing into ice where once
were puddles
. Slush that would harden overnight and contribute to skidding cars and ankle sprains if you tried to walk on it unawares.

“Where we going?”
I asked.

“The Pony Club.”

“You must know where it is.”

“Forty, fifty miles from here,” Moon
said,
his eyes straight ahead.

We drove on into the night woods, seeing very few cars for miles. It was warm in the car. After fifteen minutes or so, Lunatic said, “You acquitted yourself well.”

“Thank you.”

“SEAL training?”

“I was never a SEAL.”

“I forgot.”

“I’ve
had
SEAL training,” I said, feeling like maybe I should have kept that to myself. Still, I felt as if Moon maybe had a right to know, if for no other reason than to stop his hectoring me about my skill set. Plus, he saved my life that time.

“But you’re not a SEAL. Did they throw you out? I can see where you might have trouble taking orders.”

 
“I nearly finished training before I broke my right leg,” I said. “When an injury or illness forces discontinuing training, they make you start all over again if you’re still committed. They do not let you pick up where you left off.
Disrupts the value of the training if I jump right in, all healed and fresh and join a class that's exhausted and hanging on by their fingernails.”

“Makes sense.”

“So, after my leg healed, I went back in again.
Same story.
Broke the other leg helping carry a boat.”

“You didn’t drink enough milk as a child,” Moon said. “I would not try a third time.”

“I did not. Besides, each leg broken and healed helped me balance physically. Otherwise I’d walk around in circles all day.”

“You learned much.”

“Indeed,” I said, and shut up.

“Harmon told me he saw you take on those two guys on the bridge last year. Said he was impressed, that you’re what he calls a ‘
manhandler
.’ You are a bad man, Thomas O’Shea.”

“Indeed,” I said. “And before we finish up with Cindy’s story, I might have to be
badder
.”

“Indeed,” Moon said.

We drove on in silence, verbally benumbed, two motor-mouths riding together in the cold, black night of the north woods, looking for girls.

“Y
ou know Henry probably called this
Hornung
guy before we left the parking lot,” I said. I could sense Moon’s head nodding as I looked straight ahead into the dark tunnel of trees that was the highway leading to the town of
Chalaka
, and the Pony Club. “They might not be interested in answering our questions,” I continued.

“Maybe we can help them.”

“Yeah, work with their reticence.”

“I thought you were straight,” Moon said.

I laughed silently so as not to encourage him. He laughed in silence at my silent laughing. We were having a whiz-bang time on our road trip.

Fifteen minutes later a dull light appeared in the distant sky, barely discernible over the treetops. Shortly after that sighting, we came to a sign that read, “
Chalaka
, pop.
2,384” on the top line and “Headquarters for the
Chalaka
Branch of the Ojibwa-
Anishinabe
Nation.
Welcome!” on the next two lines.

In town, there were
a half
-dozen mainline motels, all of the two-story variety with rooms opening to the outside. There were also two seedy looking roach traps boasting of hourly rates and free adult movies. We continued on through
Chalaka
with its meager, predictable amenities for the world travelers: gas station-grocery places, a hardware store, a handful of souvenir shops, three liquor stores, several grungy bars, two fast food joints, and a church—flavor unknown.

We passed the
Chalaka
Community Center building on our left. Its sign boasted of an indoor pool, game room, basketball court, lending library, and Tribal Offices. The Center was nicely-landscaped and appeared to be well maintained.
And closed, probably for the white man’s holiday weekend.
The yellow brick and stone building offered a cleared blacktop parking lot with fresh white paint lines, and a pair of tennis courts out back in the dark, bordered by dormant light towers. No one was serving aces tonight.

Two blocks later, the Pony Club loomed up on the right. Its bright blue neon sign was written in script, and the red neon silhouette of a well-endowed woman jerkily gyrating loomed above everything. The parking lot was dark, but the entrance to the business, trimmed in river stone, was brightly lit. A small, green neon sign by the door proclaimed “Ladies Welcome.” No sexual discrimination on the
rez
.

We pulled into the parking lot and slid into a spot in the middle of a handful of other cars. Friday night and not many cars, but in a way it figured. Day after Thanksgiving, everyone thankful and staying home.

Moon parked the Packard. We got out and ambled up to the entrance. Inside, we were immediately confronted by a wall directly in front of us with a sign advertising mud wrestling and a “Special Holiday Performance” by Lola the Pole. We were forced to turn left, heading down a long, brightly-lit hallway with two security cameras eyeing us. Halfway down the hall, three men eyed us, too.

They were all young, beefy, and black, dressed in black, long-sleeved tees and black slacks with black belts and black shoes. Hell, their underwear, if they were wearing any, was probably black, too. They had the look, the cultivated, squint-eyed, head tilted back and disdainful look that freezes the tee-tee in most men. But Moon and I are not most men. Besides, I didn’t need to tee-tee. We kept walking until they stepped in front of us.

“You Lunatic Mooning?” their obvious leader, a gleaming-headed elder statesman who might have been twenty-five asked.

Moon nodded.

“Funny fucking name, Lunatic Mooning,” a subordinate thug, maybe nineteen years old, snorted. His coarse language and derisive tone were shocking.

The leader looked at me. “And you,
whitebread
.
You O’Shea?”

“No, I’m the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan of the great state of Iowa. Of course, I’m O’Shea. Jeez, pay attention.”

“Fucking smart-ass Irish,” said the third member of what must have been the Pony Club’s security force, also in his late teens, poking his finger in my chest.
Which I don’t like, so I pushed him back with my left hand and, with my right hand open flat, I slammed my palm into the tip of his finger.
This, of course, took
only a small percentage of a mini-second
and, of course, jammed his finger, like when one catches a baseball on the fingertip. It smarts, and the finger swells up and becomes stiff and might even be broken. There’s at least a small tissue fracture resulting.

“
Ow
!
Ow
!
Ow
!” he yelped, dropping his hand and cradling it with his good hand.
Big baby.
My confidence soared like the hawk.

“I want to speak with Ted
Hornung
.” Moon brushed past the three men, me right behind.

The leader nodded, hurried to get ahead of us and then beckoned us down the hallway. With every step, the noise escalated. It was music and people shouting over the music. I turned around to see what the rest of the homeland security detail was doing. The one I had jammed looked sullen, sucking his damaged digit as we began walking. He looked stupid. The third guy was working on his scary look, and failing, his expression coming across like someone suffering from indigestion and willing to sell his kingdom for a Beano. We moved ahead, shouldering our way through swinging double doors into the Pony Club itself.

An albino who looked like
Jabba
the Hut was seated at the door. His shaved head was covered in tattoos, some in dirty language. A variety of obscene tats adorned his big, flabby
bare
arms, neck, and much of his face. His eyebrows were white, his eyes were pink, and the few patches of ink-free skin looked as pale as a fish belly. After he jabbed a thick thumb at the sign over his head that stated his demand, we each paid him the twenty bucks cover charge.

“Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll get Mr.
Hornung
,” the security detail leader said. His associates shot us more testicle-withering glares and shuffled off.

Moon and I took seats at a small table deep inside the club. Clouds of blue smoke hovered over the gathering, but I did not detect the odor of weed.
Just tobacco, beer, fried food, and booze.
Now I was really hungry.
First The Tomahawk’s exquisite cuisine tantalizing me, and now this.

We had situated ourselves between the mud wrestling pit and a lonely-looking performance pole, waiting patiently, no doubt, for Lola the Pole and her amazing repertoire of salacious moves. A dim blue spotlight was trained on the empty accessory to her performance art.

The mud wrestling was going on. Two fleshy women in bikinis were slipping and falling and grappling in the ooze, which looked like melted chocolate. A big-bellied male referee in a black-and-white striped shirt trotted around the roped-off pit, occasionally leaning over or squatting, searching for infractions. I wondered what possible rules might accompany the sport. The crowd of men, and a few women, hooted and cheered, and when one contestant ripped off the bikini top of the other woman, then pushed her down in the ooze, the place erupted in cheers. The topless woman tried to get up, but her opponent immediately unleashed a flying tackle that pinned Ms. Topless helplessly in the mud. The referee beckoned the winner over to the side and raised her hand in victory while the loser gave everybody the finger, screeched salty Anglo-
Saxonisms
, and slunk away into the crowd’s insults hammering her ignominy.

A man in jeans and a gray sweatshirt emerged from the crowd waving a hand-held microphone. “The winner of the first semi-final match of the evening is
Dorie
O’Dowd, queen of the double-breasted pushdown!”

The crowd cheered and hooted some more, and
Dorie
, wiping her upper body and face with a wet towel, waved triumphantly. She was maybe thirty and a little soft-looking, understandable since she was easily thirty pounds overweight. A patch of purple hair adorned her scalp. Of course, the coating of mud would have obliterated any muscularity, but she just did not have the look of a fine athlete. She glared at the crowd and tore the microphone away from the announcer.

“I came here tonight to take names and kick ass, and the next victim of
Dorie
O’Dowd is
gonna
be
you
, bitch!” she snarled, glaring at someone in the crowd. Then she gave the mic back to the announcer and stalked off.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a short break to allow our two finalists time to prepare for the title of Minnesota Mud-Wrestling Champion
and
the five hundred dollar cash first prize. So have a drink and eat some wings and be prepared to enjoy the showdown between two unbeaten—Dangerous
Dorie
O’Dowwwwwd
and the enigmatic
Bunza
Steeeeeeele
!” And then he exited at the same time my jaw dropped.

“My God,” I whispered.

Moon looked at me.

“I know
Bunza
Steele,” I said.

“How?”

“Nice Injun lingo, Moon, but she’s the barmaid at
Shlop’s
Roadhouse back in
Rockbluff
. I’ve had a dozen conversations with her, back when I was trying to get information on Larry
Soderstrom
.”

“Oh,
that
Bunza
Steele.”
He flashed a little smile. I started to say something, but I was interrupted.

“I seed you!” a familiar voice screeched. And then I was looking up, and over, into
Bunza
Steele’s blue eyes and natural silver hair pulled into a French twist. “Remember me?” she asked, leaning over to put her face close to mine, nearly falling out of her skimpy black bikini top that might have been immodest on a five-year-old. She had smears of mud caked on her body, but I would have recognized her anywhere. The eyeball tattoo around her navel was a dead giveaway.

Bunza
is
not
flabby. She told me back in
Rockbluff
during our conversations that she worked out regularly and it showed, and she really did have buns of steel. Her boss,
Shlop
, had once been a pro wrestling entrepreneur before going into the fine dining world of
Shlop’s
Roadhouse and its
Hendigits
Specials, and he had begun training her for a pro career that would finance her dream to become a neurosurgeon.

“Have a seat,
Bunza
,” I said, privately enjoying my play on words and reaching behind me to drag another chair to our small table. “Let me introduce you to my friend, Lunatic Mooning.”

“A pleasure,” she said, reaching across the table as Moon stood to shake her hand.

“An honor,” he said, and sat back down.

She looked at Moon for a moment, her face blank,
then
animation returned. “
You
stayin
’
for the championship? We’re
goin
’ at it in about ten minutes. My victim has to suck in some air so she can dream about
stayin
’ with me. She has
no chance
.”

“This is cool,
Bunza
,” I said. “I mean, you told me you were going into
wres
…
rasslin
’ and here you are.” I gestured grandly around the big room.

“I
ain’t
doin
’ this forever,” she whispered. “After I win tonight, I’m
movin
’ up into
real
pro
rasslin
’, TV and stuff. This will give a little weight to my introduction when they announce me as, ‘
Bunza
Steele, Minnesota Mud-Wrestling Champion.’
Shlop
says
paradin
’ around in this tiny top and thong an’ getting’ all slithery with another woman will be good for my rep. He says
doin
’ this in front of men will help my boner fries.”