The Trouble Way (29 page)

Linda had a hand in that little piece of payback. She gave Ann a couple of joints to plant in a purse that Candy had on lay-a-way. Don, the door greeter, checked her package and found the joints in one of the side pockets of the purse. The city cops escorted Candy out of the store that day. By a fluke, Candy
’s boyfriend, Jesse, was busted for a broken taillight by the city cops when he was on his way to bail out Candy. He’d just picked up a lid that Linda sold to Candy and he tested the pot in the parking lot. He smelled like a he fell out of a VW bus from Haight-Ashbury when he came into the store to pick up Candy after her shift and found out she was at the county jail. He tore out after her and was stopped within a block of the store. The cops had him spread-eagled and cuffed the last Ann saw. Yeah, Jesse was a real class act.

Late
1970’s

He was scraping the ice off his windshield when he heard the wheels spinning on the ice as a lady in the space next to him gunned the engine trying to get over a small mound of snow in front of her rear wheel. Her speedometer must have
clocked at least seventy but the car’s ground speed was stuck at zero.

“
Looks like you might need a little help,” Jake said to her when she got out of the big-ass boat she was driving, an Olds, and bent to look for the source of the problem.

“
You get in and I’ll give your car a little rock. Put it in drive but don’t rev the engine, just push gently on the accelerator when I get the car rocking forward. Let up on the gas when it rocks back.”

The lady did as he instructed and after rocking back and forth several times, he smiled and waved as the
Olds bumped over the mound of snow and she drove off. He’d done same several times in the past week for people who had no clue and no business driving on snowy streets.

He got in the Beetle and put it in low. He
’d scraped the windshield of ice but the inside still hadn’t cleared of the frozen condensation entirely. He bent to see out of the cleared lower portion of the window and eased out of the snow-covered parking lot and headed home.

He was looking forward to a few suds and maybe some boogying with one of the local cowgirls. It had been a one of his two long days each week where he
’d been in the store since seven-thirty that morning. He locked the doors to the building after over fourteen hours of directing employees in stocking shelves, taking care of fucked customer complaints, and all the other bullshit of being an assistant manager and running a large discount retail store entailed.

A least this store didn
’t have the employee problems of the last three stores he worked as an assistant manager. And, the shoplifting seemed to be minimal. Country folks were for the most part, like he’d always heard, an honest bunch of people. It was like he had moved to a foreign country from the big cities of the Seattle and Spokane areas where he had worked before.

Spokane wasn
’t so bad, but Seattle and then Everett were populated with rampant shoplifters and employees of suspect character. Both stores employed a raft of thieves. Maybe he was being a bit harsh; it was probably where he worked that was the problem. Big Richards was not the “Nordstrom” of discount stores. It was several rungs below Kmart. Well, maybe one, minimum. Not that Big Richards was improving, Kmart was dropping fast since Walmart came blasting past the big-box competition and sinking the Mom and Pops onto oblivion.

He stopped at his apartment for a quick shower and to shed the dress shirt and tie
. He changed into something comfortable and grabbed his down ski-jacket and headed out. He’d left the VW idling while he changed, hoping the windshield would defrost.

His VW got him where he wanted to go, was good in the snow, and it got hell-of-a gas mileage. He
’d had his fill of running on an empty wallet in his earlier years when he had to scrimp to buy retread tires one at a time as each wore down to bald. He considered himself pretty well off when he realized he reached the point where he could buy four brand new tires at once. He vowed not to waste his cash on unnecessary expenses, such as a vehicle with a big engine. A VW suited his needs just fine. The defroster was a bastard though. Sometimes on those below zero days, his visibility was limited to the lower half of the windshield, the defroster not powerful enough to melt the ice on the top half. One would have thought the Germans, after losing a million men in that little excursion to the outskirts of Stalingrad in the winter war, would, of all people, have engineered an adequate defroster. Hell, he had an ice scraper, but that was a pain in the butt, especially on sub-zero days.

He headed across town to The Cabin, a bar near the river
and maneuvered his VW into the jammed gravel lot. His new copper color VW Bug, his third VW in the past six years, didn’t quite fit in with the other vehicles, mostly beat-up, unwashed, pick-up trucks with a rack of hunting rifles in the rear window or bales of hay in the bed.

“
Hey buddy,” a cowboy said and tossed an empty beer can in the bed of his truck.

“
Howdy,” Jake returned the greeting and followed the cowboy toward the entrance.

“
That first one is a bitch,” the cowboy said as he stumbled on the low concrete step at the entrance.

“
Hey, let me get that for you,” Jake said and pulled on the heavy wooden door open and followed the cowboy into the Cabin.

“
‘Preciate it,” the cowboy said as he teetered through the door. “What time ya got?”

“
You mean now?” Jake said and pulled his jacket sleeve up and looked at his wristwatch. Seeing the cowboy obviously didn’t get his quip said, “It’s a few minutes after eleven.”

The cowboy gave him the high sign and went on, weaving his way through the partiers milling in front of the bar.

The Cabin was one of the several bars in Missoula where Jake liked to hang out on Friday or Saturday. The Cabin always booked country bands and it was a popular place for the younger crowd. Missoula has a large number of young people because of the state college located there. It is a population center of a huge state that has very few towns.

Jake lucked out and took one of the barstools vacated by a gentleman and a lady friend.

“What can I do you for?” the bartender asked.

“
How about a cold Bud?” Jake said and the bartender did an about-face and retrieved a can from the coolers lining the back wall.

Jake turned and watched as the band members shuffled back from their break. He had damn near chugged his beer, trying to rid his mind of the clutter caused the fourteen hours of dealing with pissy customers and apathetic employees.

The band finally settled in and began playing.

Turning back to the bar, Jake raised his finger, catching the bartender
’s eye at the far end of the bar who nodded and opened the cooler door and pulled out a can of Bud. He used a can opener attached to a chain on his belt, walked the length of the bar, and set the beer in front of Jake.

I see you have a dirty glass,
” the barkeep said, “would you like another?”

“
Why would I want another dirty glass?” Jake said. “I’ll have that Bud though.”

“
Good one,” the bartender said.

Jake smiled and tossed a buck on the counter, then reached in his pocket for a quarter and flipped it on top of the bill. Jake tipped the can and refilled his mug. The barkeep picked up the bill and double-tapped the quarter on the bar as a thank-you for the tip. He headed down the bar to take care of a cowboy wearing a sweat-stained western hat who caught his eye with a one-finger flick of his wrist. It was the universal masculine wave of the truck drivers, fishermen, or hunters, and now, Jake observed, cowboys. Sometimes Jake practiced that wave in front of the bathroom mirror and had perfected it on random passing truckers, receiving a like wave in response.

Jake grabbed his mug and swiveled on his barstool to listen to the band as they started their next to final set.

The Cabin was one of the several bars in Missoula where the urban and not so urban cowboys gathered to dance to the bands that played the Willie and Waylon brand of music. It was a refreshing change from the loud music of the big city where one could not understand the lyrics of any song and one couldn
’t have a decent conversation. The music where volume trumped quality.

By the time his second beer was half-empty, his eyes were well accustom to the dim light and he scanned the smoky room.

Four girls sat at a table not far from the dance floor. A girl with long, brunette hair sat on the far side of the table. He turned and put the mug on the bar and left his barstool and set his sights on the table where the brunette with her long hair flowing over her shoulders was seated. A cowboy from his right cut him off and beat him by a step and asked her to dance.

Well, kiss my ass and call me Judy
.

“
Care to dance?” the cowboy said to the girl.

She nodded and jumped to her feet.

To avoid the embarrassment of just getting beat out and making the “shut-down” U-turn back to the bar, Jake made the obvious, face-saving choice of a guy who had similar experiences in the past. He turned to the girl with her back to him. She was the only one at the table who didn’t witness his failed actions. He asked her if she would “care to dance.” He knew from hard experience there were two chances of one of the other girls at the table, who witnessed his failed attempt, of dancing with him, zero and none. Knowing they would be his second or possibly third choice, they would have no alternative but to refuse in their own face-saving gesture.

The one with her back to him, said,
“Sure, I’d love to,” not knowing she was his second choice, and eagerly took his hand and led the way through the throng headed to the dance floor.

Unlike the big cities, what he liked about Missoula was cowboys would dance on the first song the band played. There was not that two-hour chug fest for guys to conjure the nerve to get off their asses and onto the floor like they did in Seattle. Of course, that nearly universal delay, except apparently for Montana, is exacerbated by prissy-ass bitches who think they are too fine to accept a dance from just any poor jerk who gambled all his pride to walk across the entire establishment, being scrutinized by every other prissy-ass bitch in the place, for the risk of an embarrassing turned down. Being snubbed on that first crucial dance request often killed Jake
’s chance of ever dancing again that evening with any woman, prissy or plain, in the place. He may as well anchor his ass at the bar or drive to another one. The plain girls can’t accept at the risk of being perceived as not belonging to the fine-ass crowd. It’s a pride thing and is universal for women in bars with a dance floor, including in Montana.

At any rate, that little face-saving maneuver on Jake
’s part was the best piece of good fortune he had had in a very long time and was forever happy that that cowboy beat him to the table.

“
I have to tell you something, Jake,” Annmarie said on their third dance. “I’m married.”

“
Should I be looking out for a gunslinger with a 30-30 Winchester?”

“
No, it’s just girl’s night out. My husband is not much of a dancer and I just love to dance. So, sometimes I go out with the girls when my husband is away. I hope you don’t think badly of me. He knows I like to dance and he doesn’t mind if I go out with the girls.”

“
Well, that’s a bummer. Thanks for telling me. So, maybe I should stop asking you to dance?”

“
Don’t you dare, Jake. I love dancing with you. I just wanted to be honest with you.”

“
Why don’t you join us,” Annmarie said after he had asked her several more times to dance and wove his way back to the bar after each one.

“
If you’re sure it will be okay,” Jake said and made a final trip to the bar to get his beer and retrieve his jacket from the barstool. He found an empty chair and dragged it next to Annmarie and made himself comfortable. “Maybe I shouldn’t sit with my back to the door.”

“
You’ll just have to take your chances,” she said and gave him a wide-eyed smile.

They danced the swing, waltz, two-step, and his own free-style when he couldn
’t figure out exactly what dance it was. She followed flawlessly every move he made. It was if they had practiced for years. They enjoyed every dance together and when the band took a break, they sat with the other girls, who worked with her at the state offices in downtown Missoula. Two were married and the third wasn’t. The girl with the long flowing hair was married. She had escaped a non-dancing husband for the evening too.

“
Maybe this is an odd question, but aren’t you happy with your husband?”

“
Yes, I am very happy.” Annmarie said. “Now it’s my turn; do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“
Shoot. I have nothing to hide ... well maybe a thing or twelve.”

“
Do you have someone special, Jake?”

“
Not at the moment. I was in sort of a relationship in Spokane but my work put the ol’ kibosh on that. She wasn’t ready to leave Spokane without a firm commitment and I wasn’t ready for the ol’ ball and chain. So, we said goodbye and good luck and we went our separate ways. Like Yogi Berra said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it. I work at Big Dicks and I was transferred here a couple of weeks ago on Valentine’s Day. They gave me three days to get here. I stayed in a motel till I could find an apartment. I’m still getting acclimated to Missoula. I really don’t know many people here, actually none, except for the ones at work. And, theoretically, management is not supposed to fraternize. Now I know you, and it’s just my luck, you’re married.”