The Saffron Malformation (20 page)

             
“Apparently I can,” Quey said with a touch of irony.

             
Dusty looked at Rachel, her large brown eyes bright and watching him, and then spoke.  “Sometimes something’s too special to just let pass by,” he said and her gentle face smiled brilliantly and she pushed a loose strand of light brown hair back behind her ear.

             
“Hell, that’s no shock Dusty, I knew Rachel here was special the minute she let you near her, the shock is you managed to figure it out your own self before she came to her senses and pressed on.”

             
Reggie and Dusty laughed.

             
“This is, however, a very special night, deserving of the finest moonshine whiskey this sad little rock has to offer.  Come on, let’s get a table.”

             
Dusty shook his head, “One drink but then we have to be going.  Got wedding stuff.”

             
“Oh now Dusty,” Quey started as he reached behind the bar and snatched a pair of fresh glasses.  “You can’t just drop this on us and take off.”

             
“I already knew,” Reggie said.

             
Quey looked at him, “Not helping Regg.”

             
Reggie smiled.  “Sorry boss.”

             
“Anywho, can’t drop this on us and bolt,” he finished as he finished the pouring of the shine and lifted the glasses.  He held them out to Dusty and Rachel and waited for them to figure out they were staying, at least for a while.

             
Dusty looked at Rachel who smiled and shrugged, “Not every day Quey comes to town.”  She took the glass from Quey.  Dusty smiled and did the same.

             
“Just a few,” Dusty said, pointing a finger from around his glass.

             
Quey nodded dismissively and said, “To Dusty, for finally getting his shit together in a way lesser men,” he coughed as he said, “Me,” then continued, “never seem able.  And to Rachel, for lowering her standards.”

             
They laughed and drank and took a seat at one of the round tables near the bar, two bottles of shine slowly dwindling before them.

             
Later, when the dinner rush was over and the night was winding slowly on toward close Rail joined them at their table, pulling a chair from another.  An hour or so later they invited Arnie back as they poured a fresh round.  He had some catching up to do so they made his a double.  Standing with the group, drinking the finest shine he’d ever tasted, he felt accepted.

             
“Watch it now that’s expensive stuff,” Quey said amidst the groups snickering, “and I’d appreciate it if you’d regulate more of it into the glasses than onto the table.”

             
“Oh hush now, mouth runnin’ like that it’s no wonder I can’t pour,” Reggie joked.

             
“Mouth got nothing to do with it,” Quey said.  “It’s the quart of shine in your belly.”

             
“There,” Reggie said and slid the glasses back to their owners.

             
“I think Quey got mine,” Rail said, sarcastically.

             
“Hey Regg?” Arnie asked.  Everyone stopped and looked at him, he hadn’t spoken much the whole night.  “Why do they call you Regulator?”

             
“I’ve been wondering that myself, for about a year now,” Rachel added, smiling.

             
The men laughed, Reggie hard and with his mouth open.  “Cause,” he began with a shrug, “It’s how I do it.”

             
“How you do what?” Arnie asked, uncertain.

             
“I don’t discriminate, I just regulate, every flavor of ass,” he announced while performing a slightly lude dance from his seat.

             
They laughed, Rachel with a hand over her mouth and an, “Oh my, that’s…” but she couldn’t think of what it was exactly so she said, “Wow, special,” and stopped.

             
“Which is funny coming from you,” Quey said to Reggie as the laughter slowed.

             
“Why do you say that?”

             
“Because,” Quey answered, taking a sip.  “Your family tree hasn’t branched from a flavor ever!”

             
“What do you mean?”

             
“What do I mean?  I mean any women you’re related to must be a dark and bulbous thing.”

             
“What makes you think that?”

             
“Lookin’ at you.  I mean shit, you’re dark motherfucker.  Darkest motherfucker of all time.”

             
Rail and Reggie laughed.  “Oh hell, I ain’t so dark,” Reggie said, looking down at his arms.

             
The group looked at each other for a moment then burst into laughter.

             
Quey touched the big man’s shoulder and said, “Not so dark, come on man, you’re so dark you’ve gone past black and strait to purple.  You’re fucking blurple.”

             
Laughter erupted.  Reggie was cackling so hard he smacked the table and shook liquid from a few of the full glasses.

             
Dusty shouted, “You’re the first of your ancestry to fuck something lighter than charcoal.”

             
Rail caught his breath and added, “Yeah Regg, you could burn me up in a bonfire and I’d be lighter than you,” and they all laughed again, Reggie and Quey so hard they were leaning on one another with tears in their eyes.

             
“Aright, aright,” the big man cackled.

             
“Got cha?” Quey asked.

             
“Oh yeah, you got me.”

             
Quey and Rail high fived and let Reggie laugh it out.

             
“You know what I wanna hear?” Rachel said and Quey looked to her.

             
“Uh-oh,” Reggie sounded.  “Never good when your woman has questions for your friends.”

             
“Never good when the friend is Quey,” Rail added.

             
“I wanna know,” Rachel began and Dusty tried to interrupt so she began again, louder.  “I wanna know,” Dusty settled and she continued, “About when you two were teenagers.  Before you went off with Cal.”

             
“Oh, you don’t wanna hear about that,” Dusty said, looking at Quey.

             
“Yeah, not much to tell really.”

             
“Come on, two teenagers living on their own, traveling, you had to have some adventures.”

             
Quey nodded, “Well in order to understand that time there’s really a few things you need to know about hookers and Zooch.”

             
There was a light round of laughter and then Rachel said, “No, I’m serious.  I’ve agreed to marry this man,” she said snuggling against Dusty affectionately for a split.  “I think I should know a little more about him.  I mean, I all ready know you two were thieves.”

             
“We were opportunists,” Dusty corrected.

             
“Like if something no one seemed to notice wasn’t bolted down we seized the opportunity to grab it?” Quey asked sarcastically.

             
“Yeah, something like that,” Dusty replied over the snickers around the table.

             
“Look, Rachel,” Quey said seriously and took a sip.  “Truth is the world isn’t doing so well and worse off than this rock are the people on it sometimes.  Survival is an ugly thing, you ever wanna know first hand just roll out to the wastes or anywhere there’s Once Men.”

             
She looked at Dusty and asked a question with her eyes.  “Savages,” he answered.

             
He looked at his friend solidly, “Dusty and I saw too much bad and not enough good in those times.  I could tell you a lot about those two cocky little pricks who wandered about without a regard for much beyond today but to tell you the truth if they walked in the door and sat down at this table I don’t think I’d recognize them.  And I sure as hell wouldn’t waste a drop of shine on ‘em.  You wanna know about Dusty, you look at him sitting beside you and know it doesn’t matter what it took to get him here if you can be glad he is.”

             
Rachel smiled and took Dusty’s hand in hers.

Reggie slammed his shine and added, “Its ugly out there darlin’, and ugly places do ugly things to a man and after a while a man might just do them back.”  His eyes had changed.  He wasn’t seeing the table or the glasses or the shine.  He was seeing something from the past.

              “I will tell you this though,” Quey said, refilling glasses suffering from a case of the empties.  “I was pissed as hell when he told me he was through.  Told me he was staying right here.  Remember?” he asked Dusty who nodded.

             
“You were mad he was leaving you on your own?” Rachel asked.

             
Quey shook his head.  “I was mad he’d figured out what I couldn’t.”

             
“What’s that?” she asked.

             
He took a sip.  “Something Cal finally taught me.  Survival doesn’t matter if you’re not going to live.  Without that, might as well just drink the fucking water.”

             
Reggie raised his glass, “Amen brother.”

             
And the table drank to that.

             
The night moved along and Quey used his sheet, folded down, to take some pictures, too many really.  “When the fuck did you get sentimental?” Dusty asked and Quey shrugged.  He knew exactly when it was, sometime soon after Ryla told him all this was going to be gone in a bit more than a handful of years.

Someone put coins in the jukebox and Rachel and Dusty danced together on the other side of the room to a slow island song.  Quey sat beside Reggie watching them and smiling slightly.

              “Good for you Dusty boy,” he said softly.

             
“What’s that?” Reggie asked with a slur, but Quey shook him off.

             
Arnie had lost his lunch an hour or so ago and had probably wandered off to find a bed.  Rail wasn’t looking much better, the old man just didn’t have it like he used to, and it was no surprise when he patted Quey on the shoulder and said,  “Think I’m going to turn in.  You boys have fun though.”

             
“Aright,” Quey and Reggie said.  Reggie added, “Be good man.”

             
“Oh, Quey, just come on down when you’re ready, I’ll leave the door unlocked.  You know where the room is.”

             
Quey lifted a glass to Rail who then turned and headed out into the night.

             
Reggie filled their glasses again and Quey asked, “Hey Regg?”

             
“Yeah brother?”

             
“Say you knew, I mean really knew, that this whole place was goin down.  That five, maybe seven years from now say, say you knew it’d be gone?”

             
Reggie looked over at him like he was crazy, “Naw man, town’s doin fine.”

             
“No, I don’t mean the town.  I mean the whole fucking thing.  I mean Saffron, all of it.  Poof.”

             
Reggie took a sip of shine and thought.  “Don’t know.  I mean… what do you mean?”

             
“Just,” Quey took a sip.  “You know, the wastes and all.”

             
“Oh man, come on,” Reggie began, “Blue Moon’s got that shit.”  Quey started to talk again but Reggie stopped him.  “They got them tower thingys.”

             
“Yeah, but say.  I mean just say.”

             
Reggie looked over at the shine runner and saw the distress hanging on his face.  “What cha talkin’ ‘bout over there?”

             
“Just been thinkin’.”

             
“Well I’ll tell ya what.  Somethin’ like that was comin down, I’d get out.”  Quey looked over at him and the big man said, “Fuck yeah, don’t care how, I’d find me a fuckin’ way off this rock.  I shot too many motherfuckers for someone else’s profit to go out like that.  Motherfuckers talkin’ about anti-corps.  You listen ta me, I seen a lot of shit, I ain’t never seen no motherfucking anti-corps.”

             
Quey nodded, thoughtfully.  A moment passed in silence.  “You’re a good man Reggie.”