The Lynnie Russell Trilogy (2 page)

I kicked up dirt with the toes of my boots as Hattie and I walked through the open doors. There was a band with a fiddle player on the stage. They were playing an older style country song. A bunch of couples swung around the dance floor to the beat of the music. The whole place smelled like cheap cologne, hay, and beer. Reminded me of home.

"Get this girl a beer! And make it on the house Leroy, it's her birthday!" Hattie yelled over the wood bar at the old man behind it.

Damn near eighty years old and the man is still pouring drinks. He seemed to being doin' it pretty good, too. Those folks, who say drinkin' and smokin' causes an early death, obviously ain't met Leroy Maldoon.

"You got it. You turnin' twenty-one again Lynnie?" Leroy winked at me. He had a low scratchy voice that matched the wrinkles on his hands and face. His face was permanently red and his hair was as white as a dove. Made for a funny recipe.

I nodded and smiled at the old man. He handed me a bottle of beer without charging me for it. If he could, I'd bet Leroy wouldn't charge anyone for anything, ever. But I guess you just can't run a business that way.

Me and Hattie clutched our cold beer bottles and moved on from the bar to the dance floor. The band was plucking along to some country tune when I caught Garret and Rusty making their grand entrance. Nearly everyone in the place knew my brother and the idiot he walked in with and crowded around them the second they showed their faces. In a town of four hundred people everyone knows everyone. But Maldoon's is a midway where all the folks from three different counties haul their butts out to have a good time. Garret might as well have been hung on the wall as a decoration he was there so much.

I waved my hand at my big brother and ignored Rusty when he puckered his lips and kissed the air in my direction.  Garret is a good lookin' boy. He looks like his daddy. Thank the Lord he doesn't act like him. Don’t know what I’d do if I only got to see Garret on Christmas and random weekends like my dad. Garret shared the same rough and handsome face, dark blue eyes, and a thick manly jawline. It's because of this ladies flocked to him in droves. But I know my brother; he wasn't any closer to getting hitched than I was of winning the Nobel Prize. It took a few minutes, but Garret finally broke free from the horde of drunken women pawing at him, and worked his way over to me.

"Hey birthday girl. Leroy got you started?" Garret said, nodding his head at my half-drank beer.

I smiled and chugged the rest down my gullet to finish it off. I shook my now empty bottle at my brother and swallowed the mouth full of beer I had stored in my cheeks.

Rusty smiled his stupid grin and headed off to the bar, yelling over his shoulder, "Ya' need another'n."  Hattie followed behind him swinging her girthy hips side to side.

"That damn redneck boy's gonna be the death o' me." I said to myself while I watched him walk away.

"He loves you, ya' know." Garret said.

"Yeah, 'bout as much as he loves his truck and his dog." I was starting to sound like a poor-me country song.

"Eh, Lynnie, he ain't just yankin' your chain. You got his heart." Garret made it sound like a joke, but I knew by his voice he wasn't kidding.

“Come on, now.” I looked at him with eyes that said I’d punch him good if he was lying.

“And you know in there somewhere you love him just as much. Ain’t nobody hate someone so much that didn’t love ‘em first.” He smiled smug like. It’s not often Garret gets to be a deep-thinker, even if he did use the word ain’t.

I thought for a second that Rusty Kemp actually was in love with me. He'd been pestering me for years, but I'd always figured he was just being a fool. Everything he did made me want to pull my hair out. He was always breaking my toys, eating my lunch, pulling my hair, even before I started kicking dirt at him. If anyone knew Rusty it was my brother, so he'd be the first to know if Rusty was in love. Garret had never said anything before about it. Maybe Rusty finally confessed, or Garret finally told me, or he was full of bull. Oh, hell.  Either way it was Rusty Kemp, there was no way I'd ever bed that man. Ever. I caught a mental image of Rusty and I together and my body shuddered with disgust.

"Here you are, my lady." Rusty said trying to mask his Arkie accent with a British one, as he handed me a shot glass filled to the rim with brown liquid. Whiskey, I was guessing. Rusty had a few more tucked in his big hands, but Hattie handed out the first round.

The four of us raised our miniature glasses in the air. "Happy Birthday, Lynnie," they said and flipped the glasses bottom-up to their mouths.

I did the same and the spicy fluid hit my tongue like a hot poker. I was right, it was whiskey. Before I knew it Rusty was handing me another glass filled with whiskey.

"This one's for you from me. Happy birthday." Rusty grinned at me and for the first time I didn’t want to spit in his eye. He had pretty eyes. A twinkling blue, like clear water.

I wished then that Garret had kept his damn mouth shut. I didn't wanna think Rusty was cute. I didn't want to wonder if he loved me, if Garret was telling the truth. And I damn sure didn't want to get drunk and sleep with him.

The smell of expensive whiskey filled my nose as Rusty held the glass closer to my lips. I rolled my eyes at him and took the glass. The three of them clapped and cheered when I took the shot glass, parted my lips, and let the liquid fire fill my mouth.

"A'ight, that's enough for now." I yelled over the bluesy bass guitar playing on the stage.

I had to shake my head over and over ‘til the three of them stopped egging me on for more alcohol. I knew my limit, knew I needed to slow it down even if it was just for a minute.

The band on the stage started a new song. I didn't recognize the singer, or the band, as anyone I’d seen play at Maldoon's before. But that doesn't say much. Leroy was always good about bringing in folks that were just starting out. The singer’s voice was a deep rumble that matched the heavy bass and slow beat of the song. I'm not much of a dancer, especially to slow songs, but when Hattie pulled me to the dance floor I couldn't resist. I looked back to the spot we had been standing to find Rusty and Garret had disappeared into the crowd. I’d never cared much where Rusty went, or what he did. Until Garret opened his big mouth.

Hattie and me danced together as best as two girls can without turning too many heads. The man on stage sang his heart out. His grumbly voice was a perfect fit for the song. The lyrics I could understand were mostly about being lost, losing God I think. And being stuck in the night. Wasn’t exactly what you normally hear in a bar in the middle of the sticks, but I liked it. After being stuck in Havana for twenty years, anything new was welcome.

Out of nowhere Rusty reappeared and was standing right next to me with a silly little grin on his face. Two full shot glasses were snug in just one of his big hands. He shoved the new shot in my face and clinked his glass against mine before flinging the whiskey down his throat. I tried to fight it, shook my head to tell him I was done drinking for a bit, but it didn’t work. The liquid didn't burn quite as much this time.

"My twenty-first birthday ain't  gonna be half as fun if I drink this much before I'm even legal," I said with a loud drunken laugh.

Rusty only grinned and produced another shot he’d been hiding in his other hand. I grumbled and whined, but me and him repeated the same clanking and drinking routine we done already. My cheeks were getting numb and my eyes were feeling a little heavy. I was gettin’ drunk.

The music picked up to a banjo-picking tune. Even though I actually like that kind of old honky-tonkin' I let Hattie pull me away from the dance floor and Rusty, back to the bar to see Leroy. Rusty followed behind like a little puppy dog. I looked around for Garret and didn't see him anywhere. He's probably off wooing some poor girl, I thought to myself. My big brother isn't looking for a wife, but he sure as hell is still a man and he damn sure ain't dead.

I found a seat at the old bar and let Rusty get me drunk as a skunk. Before I knew it I was piss drunk. Shot after shot, Rusty kept them coming. After that many drinks I’d forgotten all about the lifelong feeling that Rusty Kemp was a no good scoundrel and started thinking he was actually pretty good looking.

He was all dressed up. Well, as dressed up as Rusty gets. He had on his less faded Levi’s and his “goin’ out” boots. He was lookin’ pretty good in his off-white Stetson and cuffed sleeves. I ain’t nothin’ if I ain’t a sucker for a good lookin’ cowboy, my nana used to say. She was damn right. Rusty was an ornery little butt if I ever saw one, but damned if I wasn’t starting to not mind that so much anymore. What Garret said was on my mind that night. I couldn’t stop thinking Rusty Kemp was in love with me. I had always just thought he was a pig, but it turned out he was just a horrible flirt and likely just a boy in a man’s body. A damn sexy man’s body at that.

He was sweating a little when I looked at him. Just on his brow, a workingman’s sweat. I gave him a smile, a drunken one. He smiled back. I knew then that I had been wrong about Rusty all these years. And that I was piss-ass drunk.

Hattie and Garret had made themselves scarce. Only me and Rusty were left at the bar. Two drunks full of bad decisions.

“You hot?” I slurred out at him. His sweat was shining on his head and running down from his dish-water blonde hair.

“Yup. I had me too much whiskey. I got the sweats.” He smiled at me with a lazy mouth.

“You wanna go out? Cool off?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“You bet!” He said and jumped off his stool.

He grabbed me by the hand and half drug me out the front doors. Dirt kicked up off our heels while we ran to his old Chevy truck. The damn thing had about four different shades of primer on it but it ran like a champ after all his beatings from mudding and crashing into stuff all tanked-up.

“Ah, that’s better,” Rusty said. He was standing real close to me; I could smell the whiskey on his breath. It smelled sweet. I loved that smell. Soon enough it’d come out it his sweat and that would smell even better.

A country girl ‘til the bitter end I suppose. Can’t wait to get out of this Godforsaken town. Get out; see the world and all it has to offer. With all that, there’s still nothing that gets me more than the smell of an old truck, a fresh dip, and whiskey on a man. Like my mama that way, I guess.

We stood out in the night for a whole five minutes before either one of said anything again.

“Nice night, eh?” I said, just trying to make conversation.

“Yup. Beautiful,” Rusty said, not really focusing on anything but the tips of his boots.

“You alright, boy?” I asked just as I would have before Garret told me what he did.

“Why you out here with me?” He asked, still staring at his feet.

“It’s a nice night.” I knew that was a lie, but there was nothing else I wanted to say.

“Com’ on now Lynnie, I know you better than ‘at. You don’t go anywhere with the likes of me. You ain’t looked at me twice unless you was trying to take aim.” He lifted his hat and ruffled his hand through his hair.

“Maybe ‘at’s cause you’re a pig, Rusty Kemp. Treat me like the lady I am and maybe it’d be different.”

“You ain’t a lady. I watched you drink whiskey like a man and more than just tonight. I seen you change an alternator in your prom dress, you are a lady ‘bout as much as you’re a cat, Lynnie Russell.” He laughed his stupid little boy laugh that I had hated for years.

“Do you love me?” I asked him. If I hadn’t been drunk I’d’ve never said it.

“You really askin’?” His eyes went back down to his boots.

I was quiet for a long while. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to know the God’s honest truth. Or, even if Rusty would actually tell me the truth. Instead of making up my drunk mind right then, I changed the subject.

“You wanna go out to the lake?” I asked with a smile.

“You really askin’?” He said, taking his eyes off his feet to look at me with big eyes.

“You bet.” I was really asking that’s for certain, was I sure that was a good idea? No. Not one little bit.

He didn’t answer me. He just opened his truck door and shoved me in. His door was slammed shut and we were tearin’ hide out of the dirt parking lot before I could decide not to go to the lake with Rusty Kemp.

At damn near midnight, drunk, and coming from Maldoon’s, there is only one thing folks do at the lake. Well, two I guess. I was only planning on doing one of those. As long as Rusty didn’t pump me full of more whiskey I’d be alright.

“Here’s a beer.” He pulled a cold beer can out of an old red cooler on the floorboard. “You sure you wanna go out to the lake? It’s hot enough for swimmin’ tonight. That’s for damn sure.”

I was thankful he didn’t mention the other thing folks do at the lake; I wasn’t looking to do that. Just a swim. Alright, we’d have to take off some clothes, but it was just swimming. I was a tad bit worried that I wasn’t worried at all.

I’d never been in love before; I didn’t know what it felt like. I knew I had never thought of Rusty as anything but a rotten no-good turd until  the night I ended up sitting shotgun in his truck on our way to swim naked in Blue Mountain Lake.

Kissin’ & Sacrifices

We got to the lake in just a few minutes. Rusty pulled his truck close to the bank on the east side of the lake. It’s the most private side; a lot less public campsites on that side because of all the thick trees I guess. I’d think folks would be happy with more privacy, but I guess being able to see what’s around you is more important than hiding in a thick of trees. For me and Rusty it was just what we needed. Even though it wasn’t likely to run into anyone, he decided to leave his headlights off. Just in case. The two of us jumped out of the truck as soon as it stopped moving, laughing the whole way down the muddy bank.