Western Swing (30 page)

“My God, that's sick.”

“The more you save, the faster they come at you. It's a lesson about life.”

The word
life
used in the context of “Grand Scheme” made me think about Loren, which led to Buggie and babies again. I don't usually wake up obsessive or morbid, but then I usually wake up at home.

“This game's in bad taste.”

“That's the idea, Mama. You got any Grateful Dead tapes?”

I ignored the question as irrelevant. “Do you sell dope?”

My question made him miss a baby.
Aighgh Pop.
“You asking as my new mom or as a naked chick Dad picked up in the bar?”

“Someone gave me an ounce of cocaine and I don't know what to do with it.”
Aighgh. Pop. Aighgh. Splat.
The last baby landed on a fireman's head, knocking them both into crosses and flowers and ending the game.

“Cocaine?”

I showed E.T. the bag. He blinked fast as a strobe light in a disco dive. “Could I see that, Mama?”

“The name's Lana Sue.”

“Come in here.” By the wrist, E.T. pulled me into the alcove between Frogger and Real Sports Football. It was more a wall safe furnished with two stools and a table covered by drug paraphernalia than the usual idea of an alcove. Stacks of reel-to-reel tapes sat on shelves around the walls. Tapes on one wall were locked into place by wrought-iron bars.

I nodded at the walls. “What're these?”

“Grateful Dead.”

I picked one reel off a stack—RED ROCKS AMPITHEATER, DENVER, COLORADO, AUGUST 10, 1978 in blue ink on white adhesive tape.

“These're all concerts?”

E.T. pulled up a stool and hunched over an Ohaus triple beam scale. “Ten thousand hours. Largest collection of Grateful Dead music in the world, though there's a doctor in Berkeley might disagree with that.”

“How did you get them?”

E.T. placed the bag on the scale. “Twenty-eight point one, it's a little short.”

“I thought there were twenty-eight grams in an ounce.”

“Twenty-eight point three-four-nine-five, to be more or less exact. Baggie weighs a gram, though.”

I walked to the scale. He was right—28.1. “Maria was in it all night.”

E.T.'s laugh came out as a cackle. “Maria's something else, claims she hates the stuff, but that girl can suck down a gram faster than coyotes on a rabbit.”

Which reminded me. “Your dad called someone coyote ugly last night. What's coyote ugly?”

E.T. dipped a small silver spoon into the bag. He held it toward the light a minute, then bent over the spoon and made a noise like bad pipes in a cheap apartment. “Was he talking about Darlene?”

Since I didn't know the extent of the insult, I lied. “No.”

E.T.'s spoon took another dip. “I'll bet he was talking about Darlene. Dad treats her worse than he treats me.” The sight of cocaine outside the bag made my sinuses throb.

E.T. snorted up his other nostril, sniffed a couple of times, and looked pleased with himself. “Coyote ugly's when a guy wakes up holding a woman who's so repulsive he chews off his own arm rather than risk waking her. Want some?”

That seemed like an awful thing to say about your own daughter, but then my daughters are both beautiful and talented so I can't picture what it would be like to create a slug. Maybe Thorne's disappointment turned him bitter. I gestured at the barred shelf. “What are those tapes there?”

“Old ones from before Pigpen died. Dead haven't been the same without him. I've got a tape of the first acid test back in sixty-three. You know, Kesey, Merry Pranksters, the old hippie nostalgia. You can barely hear the sound. Guy recorded it on an RCA ghetto blaster with one of those microphones big as your thumb. Probably worth a hundred thousand bucks.”

“You deal to make money for Grateful Dead tapes?”

“You got it. Here, pack your nose.”

I didn't want to snort. Lord knows, I didn't want to snort, but thirty seconds later my head hummed like an air conditioner leaking Freon down my throat. Beneath the Dead tape, the room took on a low thump—a heartbeat.

I said, “Oh, hell.”

“Good, huh?”

“The speakers are buzzing.”

“Now the other side.” He held another spoonful up to my face. The heartbeat doubled.

“Lana Sue what?” E.T. asked.

“Huh? My throat is closing.”

“You said your name is Lana Sue. What's your last name?”

Pretend you're swimming in Chloraseptic. “Paul. My husband is Loren Paul.” I sat down heavily. “He's a writer. Maybe you read
Yeast Infection.
”

E.T. stared at me. His blinking was continuous, but it had gone half speed. Gave him eyes like a big turtle. “Did anyone ever notice you look a little like Lana Sue Potts? She was the singer for Thunder Road a few years back.”

I was never recognized by a fan before. It felt neat. “I am Lana Sue Potts. Or I was. I've had two other names since then, but I kept Potts as my stage name, last time I was onstage.”

“You're Lana Sue Potts?” I nodded. He blinked. “You were great. I saw you in Gunnison, Colorado, four, maybe five years ago. Holy cow, mama, you've changed.”

E.T. leaped from his stool and ran out of the room. What's he mean, I've changed? And where's this Mama crap coming from? I stared at the Dead tapes on the wall, then back at the bag of cocaine crystals on the table. I missed Loren. He was up on the mountain searching for Truth and I was in a basement dungeon sticking foul shit up my nose. Made me wonder which one of us was really crazy.

The Dead tape stopped and after a blessed moment of silence, I came on—my album. I couldn't believe someone bought it.
There's not enough tequila in Texas, for me to go home with you.
I sounded pretty good.

E.T. rushed back into the vault. “Here.” He shoved the album jacket at me. I looked down at myself standing in front of a lavender Rolls-Royce, wearing a blue, fringed vest that didn't connect between my breasts, ungodly tight white leather pants, and a blue cowboy hat. Ace chose the outfit himself. The album title ran across the top, cutting off part of my hat—
They Call Me Lana Sue.

“I never did have any cleavage.”

E.T. stood right in front of me. “This stuff isn't as good as what you did with Thunder Road. Why didn't those guys back you up?”

“We had a falling-out.”

“Sounds like you've had your share of falling-outs.”

How the hell would he know? The second cut was “Thrift Store Love.” Ace had dubbed in all these violins and three black girls singing the last word of each line after me.

When she boots you out the door. Door.

Don't come crawlin' here no more. More.

Any of those three backup singers had a better voice than mine. Everyone knew I got the solo album because I slept with Ace. Hell, for all I know, they got the backup jobs the same way.

“I'll give you a thousand dollars for the coke,” E.T. said.

“What?”

“The coke and a kiss.”

“My ears are whining.”

“A French kiss.”

“That's the stupidest deal I ever heard.”

E.T. reached into a drawer I hadn't seen under the table and pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills. He counted out ten, then stuffed the rest back under the table. “Darlene says you didn't have a dime when Dad brought you home. I bet you could use a thousand bucks.”

“Who told Darlene?” “Thrift Store” ended and I kicked into a slick commercial version of “It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To.”

E.T. stood too close to me and blinked. “You got the coke free. You can give away the French kiss, Mama.”

“But why?”

“It'll be fun to think I crammed my tongue in Dad's new woman's mouth.”

“You're all sick around here.”

“Thousand bucks for the coke and a kiss.”

I thought about the consequences. “You'll have to stop calling me Mama.” He nodded and leaned closer. I could smell cocaine fumes on his breath.

Can selling a French kiss be considered prostitution? Daddy wouldn't approve, but at thirty-eight, I couldn't base decisions on what Daddy thought. Not after my life. But to French-kiss a blinker in thick glasses, a sleeveless T-shirt, and cutoffs
—ish.
This could be sinking to an all-new low, even for me.

A few moments later I'm standing there with my eyes wide open, E.T. clamped to my face, a thousand dollars and an ounce of cocaine on the table; my mind is pinging like a Kroger cash register; over this I'm singing,
It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to, you would cry too if it happened to you
—when Maria's head comes through the door.

We stared open-eyed at each other a few seconds, then Maria said, “You better come upstairs, Mrs. Paul. There's a problem.”

I broke free of the tongue probe. Made a sound like pulling a sneaker out of deep mud. “The problem is upstairs?”

“Please come.”

I pocketed my thousand and followed Maria back through the flashing video games.

• • •

Remarkably enough, the problem upstairs was even stranger than the one in the basement. Maybe the weirdness quotient grows exponentially according to how many Axels are in a room.

With Maria in the lead and E.T. blinking along behind, we trooped up the steps and into the front living room and this fully developed scene: Billy G sunk in one of the red leather chairs, his head down in his arms; Darlene backed against a guncase, doing a high-pitched monologue that I couldn't follow except to tell I was the subject and the word
slut
came up every few seconds; Thorne, about halfway up the wide staircase, standing in a Napoleon pose with his arm swaddled in bandages, this perfectly appropriate Cary Grant smoking jacket, and blue-checkered boxer shorts. His hair stuck out sideways and pillow marks creased his cheek.

Darlene seemed to be threatening on behalf of Janey. “Mama's gonna kick butt when she comes back to get me. Daddy's butt, that naked prostitute's butt, your butt,” meaning Billy G, I suppose. Her eyebrows rode low over her eyes and buckled as she shouted. Both hands fluttered like mating grouse. “Gonna kick every butt I tell her to kick. Then me'n Mama'll go back to Paris and leave this…this.” Darlene lost words.

With his good arm, Thorne waved to me. “I just woke up.”

“So I see.”

“What's going on here?”

“Damned if I know.” Maybe it was more sleeping pills than charm, but Thorne's face was so lovably confused, aloof, and taking charge all at the same time, I had this tremendous urge to shoot through the chaos and hug him.

Thorne ran his hands through his hair. “Maria, will you bring some coffee?”

Darlene spotted me and the tirade focused a little. She pointed one stubby finger. “Bitch.”

I pointed back. “Gross slob.”

Billy G came out of the chair and across the floor. His eyes snapped with a rose color—more an alcohol-induced bloodshot than any heartbroken teary redness. He held his peacock feather hat with both hands. “I just want to know why.”

“Why what?”

“Why you're doing this to me. Do you hate all men? Do you hate yourself or are you just a screwed-up cunt?”

Somehow I ignored the cunt crack. “You're the one who said, ‘I get hung up on no one and no one gets hung upon me.'”

He turned to E.T. “We made love all night. I must have come seven times.” E.T. smiled and nodded.

I continued reminding him of his own line. “‘Fast, meaningless good time,' you said. ‘A basic quickie.'”

When Darlene screamed
slut
once more I began to understand Thorne's attitude toward his daughter.

Billy G advanced another step. “I pity you,” he said.

“And we didn't make love. We rutted. You could have been replaced by a stiff dick nailed to a tree.”

He didn't take that one well. When it came to vicious arguments, the kid was in over his head and he knew it. Billy G swung to Thorne.

“I respected you.”

Thorne came down a couple steps. His face had an interested yet not really concerned, look about the gray eyes.

Billy G beseeched, “How can you steal another man's woman?”

“I'm nobody's woman, cowboy.”

“Slut.”

Billy G held the knob thing at the bottom of the banister with one hand and his hat with the other. “Did you know that three nights ago she slept with her husband and two nights ago, me, and last night, you? Do you realize the kind of woman you're stealing?”

Thorne sent me a fuzzy look and said, “Doesn't sound like she's your woman, then, does it?”

“I'm nobody's woman.”

“Slut.”

I remembered where I'd seen that look of Thorne's before. Years ago, when the twins were two, maybe three, years old, we used to leave them with Mom and Dad and go out country clubbing or lounge hopping with Ron's pre-med buddies. About two in the morning we'd swing by my parents' and wrap the sleeping girls in their blankets and carry them out to the car, and somewhere between Daddy's house and the car or between the car and bed, Connie would come to just for a moment and mumble, “I'm not sleepy, let me down,” or something along those lines. I'd look into her beautiful eyes and love her. The expression in those eyes was the same as the one on Thorne's face the morning after his botched suicide.

Darlene put her fist on her hip and sashayed over to me. “I've slept with every cowboy in the bunkhouse.”

I said, “You aren't just weird like the others, are you, Darlene?”

Her puckered lower lip and the bags under both eyes hung the color of bruised bananas. “Roy Rogers here and I did it last night. I made him spurt eight times.”