Last Call Lounge (15 page)

Archer looked at the ground and shook his head again.  The wind rustled around the bushes.  A dog barked.  I stubbed out my cigarette and when I looked back up, Archer was still staring at me.  His jaw was clenched.  It occurred to me that it was the first time I had ever seen him angry.  Then he rolled his eyes and his mouth pulled into a thin grin.

“Fine, no lecture,” he said.  He turned away, but then shouted to me over his shoulder.  “But ask yourself something, dummy – if you really don’t give a shit about that house of yours, why’re smoking outside instead of in?”

Back in the living room, Frank was on the couch in a clean shirt, his work pants, and his cracked shoes. His wet hair was slicked straight back.

“What size shoes do you wear?” I asked.

He looked down at his feet.

“Eleven,” he said.

I went into my room. In the back of my closet were a few pairs of Dad's shoes. I picked up a pair of black work boots.

“Here,” I said, putting them on the floor next to him. “These were my Dad's. You can have them if you want.”

“Thanks,” he said. He pulled off the old shoes and set them neatly on the floor. I sat down on the couch. When he finished lacing up Dad's shoes, he picked up the old pair and carried them out of the room. He came back and sat on the edge of the recliner.  I tried to breathe into my shoulders and calm down, but Archer had left me worked up.  So I just said it.

“Worm is dead,” I said.

I was reminded again of how young Frank must have been. His eyebrows shot up in shock and tears filled his eyes almost immediately. His mouth dropped open a little and his lip quivered. I swallowed and looked away.

“He was shot. In his truck,” I said. I looked up again and Frank was wiping at his eyes with his fingers. “I'm sorry,” I said.

“Fuck,” Frank said and put his hand over his mouth. “Fuck.”  He was drawing in deep breaths, his face was red. “Do you think, do you think they'll come after me?”

I turned my head and scratched at the back of my neck. Outside, the wind brushed through the azaleas.

“I don't know, Frank,” I said. He covered his mouth with his hand again. “I doubt it. Worm stole something from them. I don't see why they should think you had anything to do with it.”  He nodded, his hand still on his mouth. “I told the cops about Oscar. They'll probably pick him up soon.  But, the truth is, they might come here.  Worm told them I had the money.  I think they broke into the bar looking for it, so they might try to find it here.  I wanted you to know, in case you wanted to stay somewhere else.”  Frank pressed his fingers into his eyelids, blew out through his teeth. “It's gonna be okay,” I said.

Frank sat for a moment, his eyes pressed into his hands. Then he looked up at the ceiling, blinked hard to clear the tears.

“I'm sorry about Worm,” he said. “I know he was your friend.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. A wave of fatigue hit me and I tasted metal. 

An afternoon when I was trying to get together with Worm to buy off him, a sweat-stuck, summer afternoon. My truck overheated. I pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store, two miles from my house. I called Worm, told him what had happened and that I wouldn't be able to meet him.

“Where are you?” he asked.

Ten minutes later, Worm thundered up in his white truck, the windows shaking under the bass power of some Kid Rock song. He pulled into the space next to me and I felt a flush of embarrassment at being publicly associated with this redneck. He climbed down from the cab with two tall boy cans in paper bags and handed me one.

“You need a ride?” he asked, sipping.

“Nah,” I said. “I'm just gonna wait for it to cool down so I can drive it to the mechanic.”  I was leaning against the side of my truck, squinting in the afternoon light. Worm leaned next to me. “You don't have to stick around,” I said. “I'm fine.”

“I don't mind,” he said. “I'll keep you company.”

“You don't have to do that,” I repeated.

“What're friends for?” he asked.

I looked at Frank, wearing my father's shoes, crying in my living room.

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm sorry, too.”

SIXTEEN

We rode to the bar together later, just before midnight. I had to go screw the back door shut and Frank wanted to come along. He was scared, I guessed, and probably didn't want to be left alone in a strange house, with what had happened to Worm. I grabbed one of the bottles of Blanton's out of the cabinet in my living room, to replace the one that had been broken in the office.

The streets were empty and quiet. Some people had evacuated, some had just hunkered down. A few houses had their windows covered with plywood. Some had their windows taped, big x's of painters tape that was supposed to keep the glass from shattering. Frank and I didn't talk. Water dripped from the air conditioner vent onto Frank's shoes.

Down the street from the bar, there was a tattoo parlor, its big front windows covered in cheap plywood.  Someone with bad handwriting and a can of black spray paint had written on the wood, “Fuck Allison.  Fuck Katrina. Fuck Rita.”   Then, below that, in red spray paint, “You Loot, We Shoot!” 

Tracy was working. She poured two shots when she saw me walk in. She smiled at me over the rim of the shot glass as she drank hers. She hadn't heard about Worm yet and I wasn't going to tell her. Frank might tell her, but I didn't feel like getting into it. Tim Cole was there, too, shooting pool by himself, a little wobbly but grinning. He waved to me when he saw me. I turned away.

Frank went behind the bar to help Tracy. He didn't speak to her and she seemed to sense that something was wrong. She patted him on the shoulder as she moved past him. When he didn't look up, she moved away.

I took the bottle of Blanton's into the office and closed the door. Dad always said it was bad luck to put a full bottle in the drawer, so I unscrewed the top and took a long swig from the bottle. The bourbon pulled on something as it went down, some lever in me that made me weak. I slumped into the chair and put my head down.

After a few minutes, I blinked myself sober. I looked around the room. The beer cases were the same, the trashcan was the same. That was something. Worm was dead because of what was hidden in my office. I needed to leave, to run to France. I needed to talk to Ruby.

When I walked back into the bar room, Ruby was standing in the doorway. She wore a gray dress that ended just above her knees and a long silver necklace that disappeared into the swell of the lace of a white slip. She clutched her wallet under her arm, clasped her hands together. She saw me and smiled.

“Little John,” she said.

We sat down at a booth, our drinks in a row between us. She folded her hands in front of her and looked down at them. She tapped her foot against the table base and chewed at her thumbnail. I remembered this mood. Occasionally, Ruby couldn't sit still. Her energy overwhelmed her, like a caffeine overdose. It was a skittish, sharp mood that sped up her gestures and flicked at the edge of her eyes.

A fall evening when Ruby and I were dating.  We drove to Galveston with the windows down, the cool air swirling around us.  Ruby was tight and nervous.  All day, her fingers tapped on her knees. She smoked quickly, one after another.

“Is everything all right?” I asked a dozen times.

“Of course,” she said. “Of course.” 

I stopped at a liquor store and bought a fifth of brandy, hoping to calm her. As the sun set, we sat on he strip of sand between the rocks and the seawall, passing the bottle back and forth. The sun set, the sky was orange, then purple, then black. I reached for her hand. At the same moment that I touched her, a stray dog came out from behind a rock not five feet away from us.

Ruby screamed, a horror movie scream, and leapt to her feet. I laughed at first, thinking she was acting, but a full panic had set in.

“Ruby,” I said and reached for her again. I touched her leg and she screamed again. She turned to run but slipped in the sand. She fell, her hand pushing off one of the boulders and rolling her onto the sand. The dog ran down the beach. I stood up and moved to help Ruby up. She lay on the sand, panting and clutching her wrist.

“Ruby,” I said again. She looked up at me without recognition. “It's okay,” I said. “It's okay.”  Her chest heaved with her breath, her eyes were wide. “It's okay,” I kept saying until, at last, the panic subsided. She blinked up at me.

“God,” she said, almost asked. Embarrassment crept across her face. She put her weight on her hurt wrist, winced with pain. “Did you see that fucking beast?” 

“Ruby,” I said, laughing a little.

“It's not funny,” she cried, her voice strained. She pushed herself off the sand, started brushing herself off with short, quick flicks of her hands. “I had an experience,” she said. “You wouldn't understand.”  That was it again, the mystery, the inner Ruby was only allowed a glimpse of.

“Okay,” I said. “What is it you have to tell me?” 

Ruby looked down the bar, toward the back door. Her face was powder pale, her blue eyes dark and darting. She flicked her fingernails together and sighed.

“Little John,” she said. She brushed her hair behind her ear and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

“Okay,” I said.

“I'm so worried,” she said. A heaviness hit me, like the weight of your body when you're trying to pull yourself out of water.

“Okay,” I said.

She bit at her thumbnail. Her eyes looked off somewhere. She breathed in and pursed her lips.

“I don't have any cash,” she said finally. Before I could answer, she continued. “I left my debit card in California and the bank won't be open in the morning.”  She wiped her eyes. “And I have a prescription I need to get filled, but I have to call my pharmacy back home first.”  She went on, her long hands dancing across the table and up to her eyes, her lips.

I watched her and, suddenly, I felt a lightening. This was it, I realized. The smoke, the mystery. What Ruby had kept hidden from me, intentionally or not, all those years. The great secret that had kept me away, had driven me mad with lust, had broken my heart.

Ruby was ordinary.

Whiskey-warmth spread across my back. I reached across the table, took one of her dancing, ivory hands in mine.

“Hey,” I said. “It's okay.” 

She went on for a minute, about packing, about calling relatives and letting them know where she was going, a list of errands that needed to happen before she got on a plane. She went on and I let her.

I let her because it made me happy.

If Ruby could be ordinary, then maybe I was ordinary. And then maybe it meant we could love each other, could have a shot at it. Because a woman made of smoke couldn't be held. But an ordinary woman had ordinary problems, problems that could be solved, or at the very least, addressed. And maybe the most basic part of love is accepting the responsibility of helping someone else address her ordinary problems.

I squeezed Ruby's hand. She paused and looked at me, her mouth open, her rock-green eyes full and wet.  A tear rolled down her cheek, past a wrinkle, a little crease that ran from the corner of her eye along the arc of her cheekbone.

“Hey,” I said. “It's okay. We’re gonna stop in Austin. We can stay there for a day or two while we take care of all of this.”  She blinked and breathed into her shoulders. “It's okay,” I said again.

She looked at me, her brilliant emerald eyes under her savage bangs, eyes that Sarah didn't have, that Tracy didn't have, that no woman but Ruby would ever have. I looked at her and, just like that, the weight was gone. I thought of Jacob. I thought of my father, sitting on the back porch, pouring Jameson in his morning coffee. I smiled, an open smile because I was happy.  And then she smiled, too.

“Okay?” I said again

The green eyes went wider. She nodded, just a tiny movement of her head.  Her cheeks were mottled and red and her mascara had begun to pool.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.” 

I stood up.

“Listen,” I said. “Dad and I had kind of a tradition.”  She stopped at the mention of my father. “When things got to be too much, we'd stay after hours and drink bourbon in the office. Good stuff, not the shit we serve the customers.”  A small laugh. “Stay. I've got a bottle of Dad's favorite. We'll drink the bottle, we'll make a list, and in the morning we'll just start taking care of it.” 

She breathed in and out. She was still shaky and skittish. Her hands flickered at her sides. Finally, she nodded.

“Okay,” she said.

I moved her to the bar, a few stools down from Tim Cole. Tim was drunk, laughing to himself, a harsh, bitter laugh.

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Tim said. “Oh, yeah.”

Frank was standing at the end of the bar, wiping his hands on a bar towel and I remembered one more thing I had to take care of.

“Sit here for a minute,” I said to Ruby. “I have to take care of something outside. I'll be right back.”  She was still shaking, so I asked Tracy to make Ruby a Manhattan.

“Could you help me outside?” I asked Frank. “I want to take care of that back door.”

We went around the side of the building and down the alley where Frank had slept. The gate into the patio was at the end of the fence, under the blue shadow of the brick warehouse next door. The alley was lit by one motion-sensitive security light, mounted high on the brick wall, that never seemed to turn off. Its bulb was in a metal cage, to keep vandals and the homeless from smashing it. I unlocked the gate.

The patio was empty. Frank and Mitchell had leaned the two-by-four against the wall next to the back door. Mitchell had screwed wood screws partway in to make my job easier. Frank picked up the first two-by-four while I took the cordless drill out of its case. I screwed the first screw in. It whined as it twisted into the frame. Then Frank and I switched sides and I drilled in a second screw. The board was held in place, now, and Frank stepped back out of the way. I paused.

“How long has it been since you've been back to Little Rock?” I asked.

Frank seemed completely unsurprised by this change of topic.

“I don't know,” he said. “About four years, I guess.”  Somewhere on the other side of the building, a car door shut. Thin strains of music filtered through the back wall, some funk album Tracy was always playing. “It's hard because I don't have a car,” Frank said. “I can take a Greyhound, but my Mom doesn't have a car, either. So when I get there, I have to find a ride from the bus station.” 

I screwed in the last two screws on the first board. Frank picked up the second and held it in place. When I'd finished screwing that in place, I put the drill down and pulled out my cigarettes. Frank leaned against the back wall of the bar. I sat on top of the picnic table and smoked. Hurricanes pull northern air down on their west sides, so the night was cool and dry. I looked up and the sky was clear and I felt loose and calm. Frank was the last piece, the solution to the last problem I had to take care of before I could go.

“You're welcome to stay at my place during the hurricane,” I said to Frank.

He nodded and shifted his weight.

“Thanks,” he said, looking down at his shoes.

“It's no big deal,” I said. “I'm not gonna be there anyway.”  He kept his head down and didn't answer. “You'd actually be doing me a favor. I'll be a lot more comfortable knowing somebody's there,” I said, throwing in the truth. This seemed to lighten him up. He looked up.  “I understand if you don't want to,” I said.

“I'll watch the house,” he said, nodding. “I'd like to.”

I ground my cigarette out on the concrete and packed up the drill.  That was it.  Everything was covered.  I was taking the money and taking Ruby and I was getting the fuck out.  Jacob would be safely in Austin and now Frank would be watching my house in case Oscar showed up.  I almost whistled.

We went out the gate and I pulled it closed and locked it. At the front of the building, we both paused. There wasn't a car on the road, as far as you could see, in either direction. The yellow pools of the street lights fell on empty black asphalt. The store across the street was boarded up, yellow plywood covered the ground-floor windows. A distant train whistle cut through the air. The train track was two miles away. I looked at Frank and he was smiling, a lopsided grin under his lopsided nose.

“Weird,” he said. “It's so dead out here.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It's weird.”

I pulled open the front door and let Frank in in front of me. He walked behind the bar and Tracy swatted at him with a towel.

Ruby, my Ruby, was sitting at my bar, half a Manhattan sweating onto a square bev nap in front of her.  I swiveled onto the stool next to her and took her hand.  It was cool and thin in mine.  I looked at her and she slowly she raised her eyes.  And she smiled first.

I turned away and gestured to Tracy for a Lone Star.  She brought it, set it in front of me, held it a moment too long.  I looked up and her eyes were tired and I remembered.

I took a long drink, the cool beer slipped down my throat.  Tracy brought me a shot of Beam before I asked for it.  I took half of it in one drink, then took Ruby’s hand again.

“Ruby,” I said finally.  “I need to ask you something.  Why did you come back?  To Houston, I mean.”